Sustainable Studio: Hartford to Ghana and Back

Following travels to Ghana for her studio research, Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing, Carol Padberg, has designed a course, Sustainable Studio, which will be offered for the first time at the Hartford Art School during winter term 2012. Based at the Kokrobitey Institute outside of Accra, Ghana, students will have the opportunity to engage with West African art, culture and traditions for an intensive three-week period.

Padberg describes her initial interest in the imagery and symbolic language of Ghana:

It was my studio practice that led me to Ghana. I saw an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Design without End,” which featured contemporary West African artists whose work is in some way influenced by textile traditions in Africa. When I saw that exhibition, I had a deep appreciation for the work, and I made a promise to myself that I would somehow go to West Africa to learn from these traditions and to meet contemporary artists in Ghana. I did not know how it would affect me, but I had a very clear sense I had much to learn from West African art and culture. I was very fortunate, through funding from the university (an International Center grant, and sabbatical international research funding), to visit Ghana twice in the past two years. The first trip allowed me to do several studio visits, and to visit the main art college campus in Kumasi. During my second trip, I taught a Professional Practices workshop at the Foundation for Contemporary Art, made art during a studio residency, and explored the upper northern region of the country, where I was able to research the adobe wall painting tradition of the village of Sirigu. For an artist who is fascinated by abstraction and language, the widespread use of abstract symbols that encode stories in Ghanaian art and culture is a source of inspiration, so it has been a natural part of the world for me to explore. Ghana is well known as a tremendously warm and welcoming country. I treasure the friendships I have developed with artists in Ghana, and I found that the two trips I took to Ghana greatly expanded my view of art and the world we live in. Of course, I want to share this experience with my students.

Carol first became aware of the Kokrobitey Institute through a colleague, Bolaji Campbell, an art history professor at RISD, who had led his own successful student trips to Ghana in partnership with the Institute. “I was intrigued with the location, and the history of the Institute, which was built as a place for international visitors to connect with West African culture through the arts, ecology and art history. When I visited last summer I knew that this would be the ideal setting for our students to experience the old-world culture of Ghana. It is an exceptionally beautiful studio art center, and the director and staff at Kokrobitey have more than a decade's experience in helping American college students gain an understanding of life in the developing world. In addition to learning about the art and culture of Ghana, students at Kokrobitey do service work in the community and visit the on-site design business that recycles materials to make beautiful purses and computer bags. The village of Kokrobitey is a performing arts hub, with beachside gatherings every Friday and Saturday night for drumming and Ghanaian music. There is a lot to explore even within the village.”

The Kokrobitey Institute was founded in 1992 by American educator, Ms. Renée C. Neblett, as an American non-profit and a registered Ghanaian Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). Situated approximately 25 kilometers west of the capital city of Ghana, Accra in an ocean-side campus, the Institute exposes students to a richly diverse natural, political and historical region. The learning outcomes of such a course are experiential and immersive. Padberg describes a typical day at the institute:

The campus wakes up in the morning to an open-air breakfast among palm trees in an outdoor dining room by the sea. Following breakfast there is a daily morning meeting, where the itinerary for the day is discussed and logistical issues are addressed. Morning meeting also allows for dialogue and reflection upon the previous day's events and curriculum. The morning meeting closes with teaching a specific Adinkra symbol to the students. The Adinkra symbols are abstract forms that appear throughout Ghanaian art and craft traditions. Each symbol refers to a particular proverb; thus, Adinkra is a perfect introduction to Ghanaian culture.

A typical day would include a trip to a local artist's studio or national park (such as the Kakum Rainforest), followed by a studio work session, and wrapping up in the evening with a discussion or attending a musical event. My class will balance active elements, such as visiting artists and experiencing music and dance, with time to reflect, write, and make art. Another key component of the course is maintaining an open dialogue about life in the developing world. When I brought my sixteen-year-old daughter to Ghana with me last summer, she had many questions and observations about ways in which life is both the same and different in an emerging economy. I see this class as being a vehicle for Western students to become global citizens.

The Kokrobitey Institute describes its mission as one that “offers study programs and implements local and sustainable development projects, focused in Environmental Studies, Art and Design and viewing these disciplines through the lenses of the cultural, social, historical, and natural resources of Ghana.”

This mission runs parallel to that of Padberg’s forthcoming study abroad course, "Sustainable Studio," which will cover traditional art forms, such as printed fabric design, wood carving, basket weaving, and ceramics, as well as contemporary artists’ work focusing on the environment. In the big picture, the class will give students a better sense of the planet as a whole, and of humanity in the developing world. In regard to their development as artists and designers, HAS students will be given an interdisciplinary studio class, where they will make art and learn about art and culture in a non-Western environment that may be quite new to them. For art history majors, the course will bring to life the arts and culture of West Africa.

Study Abroad and Embedded Study programs have an expanding and influential presence at the Hartford Art School and the wider university, with programs based throughout Europe and Australia. Funding remains one of the ongoing challenges with such programs, as students contend with individual funding; however, for those with financial support, the experience is rare and invaluable. For more information, please visit www.carolpadberg.com, and www.kokrobiteyinstitute.org,.