Yaw Owusu

Private Collection

Cape Town, Norval Foundation, The Norval Sovereign African Art Prize 2023, January - February 2023

Yaw Owusu creates installations that transform discarded objects into objects of value that question how value in itself is made and unmade. Using steel, gold, silver, copper and found objects in foils, sheets and coins, his work pierces the strata of trade, exchange and labour histories that form the foundations of contemporary economies.

Gold Pastures, 2022 is created from Ghana pesewas, US pennies, Euro cents, UK pence and Dubai fils alongside stainless steel, copper wire and wood. Inspired by his encounters with people from Africa and other immigrants around the US, Europe, and the UAE, Owusu drew his attention to the effects of migration on identity and culture. The title, which riffs off the notion that life might be better elsewhere, questions the global economic conditions that simultaneously encourage migration (in order to exploit a cheap labour force) and restrict it (in the form of various bureaucratic barriers as well as poor living and working conditions).