Part of the CREAM (University of Westminster, Centre for Research in Arts, Education and Media) "On-doing Undoing" was Barby Asante's Viva Exhibition bringing together her ongoing works "Declaration of Independence" and "The Queen and the Black-Eyed Squint- Glasgow", explored in her thesis "That Bird is Singing Us an Invitation to Meet Our Future: Listening to the Call of Sankofa to Develop Memory Practice Methodologies for Performative Practice." (December 2022)

Both works explore the legacies of coloniality, through performative actions that include reflecting on family histories, relationships to place, museum and archival practices and propositions for the future.

Underlying this work, Barby engages in a personal exploration of Sankofa, a philosophical principle that is part of the Ghanaian Àdìńkrá communication symbology. In Akan cosmology, Sankofa is symbolised by a bird standing with its feet facing forward and its head turned backwards, paying attention to an egg carefully balanced on its back.

Commonly understood as “go back and get it” Barby's thesis delves into her wish to deepen the understanding of Sankofa to imagine what it has to offer as an African diaspora memory practice, beyond the conventional idea of returning to or recovering a history in order to imagine oneself as part of the world. Instead, She is interested in Sankofa as a Wayfinder, which not only offers a way to explore and excavate historical facts but also as a way to think about self-determination, intergenerational healing from trauma and imagining other ways of living and being.

"Declaration of Independence" and "The Queen and the Black-Eyed Squint-Glasgow" are expressions of how Barby imagines her relationship with Sankofa. Both works explore the often hidden histories and experiences of Black and of colour women and non-binary folx as they navigate what Ghanaian Pan-Africanist feminist writer and poet Ama Ata Aidoo described in her 1992 poem "As Always a Painful Declaration of Independence", as “the clear world of/ take/ and take/ and take.”

Exhibition Images - David Freeman

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/35452