{"id":50127,"date":"2017-04-10T16:01:54","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T14:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=50127"},"modified":"2017-04-10T16:01:54","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T14:01:54","slug":"elisabeth-sutherland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/elisabeth-sutherland\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ghanaian Performance Artist Using Technology to Create Feminist Folklore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=size--small><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-50132\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Sui-Generis-2015-Chalewote-Street-Art-Festival-Jamestown.-Photo-Credit-Desire-Clarke-2015_2.jpg\" alt=\"Sui Generis, 2015 (Chalewote Street Art Festival, Jamestown). Photo Credit Desire Clarke, 2015\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" \/> Sui Generis, 2015 (Chalewote Street Art Festival, Jamestown). Photo Credit Desire Clarke, 2015<\/p>\n<p>Despite having the high school grades to pursue medicine and please her Ghanaian family, Elisabeth Sutherland chose to go down the volatile artistic path. However, the 24 year old didn\u2019t have to look too far for inspiration, as her grandmother, Efua Theodora Sutherland, was a playwright, director, children&#8217;s author, poet and dramatist. \u201cShe was actually one of the pioneers of theater in Ghana and West African literature,\u201d Sutherland says. \u201cI\u2019m often associated with her because I write, I&#8217;ve worked with kids, and I&#8217;m starting to be politically active.\u201d<br \/>\nWorking across theatre and performance, Sutherland\u2019s practice has a firmly feminist outlook. Often creating myths for female emancipation, she\u2019s deeply concerned with the way culture shapes individuals and nations, and how these form perceptions of gender. Born in 1993 and based in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, Sutherland began writing narratives influenced by the West African literary canon, especially the works of Nobel Prize winning author, Wole Soyinka. Later, she began incorporating technology. \u201cI first experimented with projection in the US,\u201d she says about her BA in theatre at DePauw University, Indiana. \u201cAfter I moved back to Accra, I used [projection] almost as a glorified PowerPoint presentation, but I also saw so much potential, especially when interfacing with bodies and environment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=size--small><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-50130 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Elisabeth-Sutherland-Anansi\u2019s-Wife-Akua\u2019s-Daughter-2016-courtesy-of-the-artist-and-ANO-Ghana.-Anansi\u2019s-Wife-Akua\u2019s-Daughter-was-developed-through-residencies-at-ANO-Accra-and-at-89Plus-1.jpg\" alt=\"Elisabeth Sutherland, Anansi\u2019s Wife Akua\u2019s Daughter, 2016, courtesy of the artist and ANO, Ghana. Anansi\u2019s Wife Akua\u2019s Daughter was developed through residencies at ANO, Accra and at 89Plus (1)\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" \/> Elisabeth Sutherland, Anansi\u2019s Wife \/\/ Akua\u2019s Daughter, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and ANO, Ghana. Anansi\u2019s Wife Akua\u2019s Daughter was developed through residencies at ANO, Accra and at 89Plus<\/p>\n<p>Her evolving project, &#8220;Anansi\u2019s Wife\/Akua\u2019s Daughter&#8221;, is testament to this experimentation. In this performative installation based on the famous Ghanaian folktale trickster, Anansi, the artist rewrites the traditional tale from a female perspective by spotlighting Aso, Anansi\u2019s spouse. \u201cIn the folktales Aso is always a sort of second character, so I wanted to give her a voice,\u201d she says. Originally actors would perform this folktale alongside musicians, urging \u00a0participation from their audience. But in the Sixties, Sutherland\u2019s grandmother modernised its dramatic structure by borrowing from Western literature conventions. \u201cSo what I\u2019m doing now is taking it a step further again by adding technology and restyling the movement even further,\u201d she explains.<br \/>\nThrough this process, the artist has created several versions of the show, sometimes using non-professional actors, sometimes casting herself, but always supplementing every iteration with new tech. \u201cCurrently I am playing around with very basic sensors that respond to body stimuli,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s also a video collage projected onto the wall that responds to body heat and motion speed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=size--small><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-50131 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Elisabeth-Sutherland-Anansi\u2019s-Wife-Akua\u2019s-Daughter-2016-courtesy-of-the-artist-and-ANO-Ghana.-Anansi\u2019s-Wife-Akua\u2019s-Daughter-was-developed-through-residencies-at-ANO-Accra-and-at-89Plus-2.jpg\" alt=\"Elisabeth Sutherland, Anansi\u2019s Wife \/\/ Akua\u2019s Daughter, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and ANO, Ghana\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" \/> Elisabeth Sutherland, Anansi\u2019s Wife \/\/ Akua\u2019s Daughter, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and ANO, Ghana. Anansi\u2019s Wife Akua\u2019s Daughter was developed through residencies at ANO, Accra and at 89Plus<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>&#8220;Performance and oral based culture has a very direct way of speaking to people, and that can be very powerful and healing&#8221;<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nLast year Sutherland completed an MA in performance at London\u2019s Brunel University, while continuing to support the Accra Theatre Workshop, a program she co-founded to stimulate new and young talent in Ghana. And although her studies have taken her far and wide, it is in her home country that she first made her mark. In 2014, Simon Castets and Hans Ulrich Obrist invited her to take part in their group show, \u2018Filter Bubble\u2019, in Zurich, as part of their 89plus project promoting artists under-25. \u201cIt was very unexpected. We met at a gallery where I was working Accra, and they got really interested in some of my work.\u201d\u00a0Their collaboration culminated in a residency, which Sutherland concluded at the Google Cultural Institute in Paris at the end of 2016. During it, she made a 3D scan of herself, which she will use to punctuate her next solo performance of her on-going show. However, technology is not the focus of &#8220;Anansi\u2019s Wife\u2026&#8221;. At fore of her piece is the concept of storytelling as a means of collective-psychotherapy, a way of recontextualising national mythos by emphasising the experience of a female Ghanaians as figures with agency, rather than mere passive accomplices. \u201cNarrative is really important [in terms of] cultural identity, especially when we look back and rewrite history,\u201d she says. \u201cPerformance and oral based culture has a very direct way of speaking to people, and that can be very powerful and healing.\u201d<br \/>\nThere seems to be no end to Sutherland\u2019s progress; every new version of her show adds more layers. Sometimes, she even introduces last minute plans, seamlessly combining form and content in a manner that seems to enact the way in which she\u2019s re-appropriating stories from West Africa\u2019s cultural archive for social change. \u201cI do have very strong ideas,\u201d she says. \u201c[But] to me the concept and process are the most important things.\u201d<br \/>\n<strong>&#8220;Anansi&#8217;s Wife \/\/ Akua&#8217;s Daughter&#8221; is on display at Ghana&#8217;s ANO until 13 May 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Using 3D scans and body stimuli sensors, Elisabeth Sutherland is retelling folk tales from a female perspective<\/p>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":50138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139,3980],"tags":[38,8352,687,1283,8065],"class_list":["post-50127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","category-tech","tag-art","tag-elisabeth-sutherland","tag-ones-to-watch","tag-print","tag-sleek-53"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Ghanaian Performance Artist Using Technology to Create Feminist Folklore<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Using 3D scans and body stimuli sensors, Elisabeth Sutherland&#039;s performances retell Ghanian folk tales from a female perspective.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/elisabeth-sutherland\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Ghanaian Performance Artist Using Technology to Create Feminist Folklore\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Using 3D scans and body stimuli sensors, Elisabeth Sutherland&#039;s performances retell Ghanian folk tales from a female perspective.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/elisabeth-sutherland\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-04-10T14:01:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Will Furtado\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4\u00a0Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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