KOFI DUAH: VISIBILITY IS BEING SOUGHT FOR YOUR VOICE

AKUA STUDIOS:

What drives your creative practice?

KOFI:

I am a visual architect of identity and memory. By training, I hold a Masters in Design, which gives me a rigorous framework for understanding composition, narrative, and systems. By practice, I am a photographer who uses the portrait as my primary medium of inquiry.

What drives me is the concept of Sankofa—a Ghanaian principle of reaching back to reclaim what was lost in order to move forward. My creative practice is an active process of Sankofa. I am driven to unearth, re-imagine, and document the nuances of the Black experience—particularly the diasporic, European-Black experience—that often go unrecorded or are flattened by a monolithic gaze. It's about creating a visual archive of our complexity, our joy, our interiority, and our future speculations.

AKUA STUDIOS:

We all hold multiple identities. Can you share a moment when your work powerfully expressed one or more aspects of your identity?

KOFI:

My series "Not for sale" comes to mind. It explored the horrifying nature of families that migrate illegally to Europe. That got through Libya and got sold as slaves instead. This was not just for aesthetics, but as a living archive. In one particular self-portrait, I photographed a man in a forest running with his child in hand and a tag that says "not for sale". Based of the strong imageries it got picked up and got lot of publicity on it self even got me an interview with BBC AND CNN to talk about that topic.

I also had a project that focused on black women in high fashion and In that single image, I expressed multiple, often underrepresented, identities: The Models were Black immigrants, whose very presence is a direct result of those lines on the map. I was the academic, using research and conceptual design to frame a personal history. And I was the artist engaging in a ritual of care and community that is passed down through generations. The work wasn't about trauma, but about resilience, memory, and the beautiful, complicated tapestry of existing in a body that is both European and undeniably African. It made visible the silent histories we carry in our very skin and hair.

AKUA STUDIOS:

When navigating creative spaces in Europe, what barriers have you encountered? How do you maintain authenticity?

KOFI:

The most pervasive barrier is the burden of explanation. There's an expectation that your work must first "educate" a white audience about Blackness before it can be appreciated as art. Your work is often funneled into themes of "race," "diversity," or "migration," while a white peer exploring "memory" or "landscape" is seen as universal.

Another is aesthetic gatekeeping. The European canon is often presented as the singular standard of excellence. When my work incorporates vibrant colour palettes, patterns, or narratives rooted in African aesthetics, it can be dismissed as "decorative" or "ethnic," rather than understood as a deliberate and sophisticated visual language.

I maintain authenticity by grounding my practice in a personal lexicon. I return to my own research, my own family archives, my own questions. I ask myself, "Does this decision serve my narrative, or am I making it to make my work more palatable?" I also cultivate a small, trusted circle of other Black creatives and thinkers. Their gaze is my litmus test for truth.

AKUA STUDIOS:

Visibility vs. Tokenism — where do you draw the line?

KOFI:

Visibility is being sought for your voice. Tokenism is being sought for your silhouette.

The line is drawn at agency and context. Visibility means you are in the room as a collaborator, with your expertise respected. Tokenism is when you are in the room as a prop, to fill a quota or to provide a veneer of inclusivity for an institution that has not done the deeper work.

I experienced this distinction clearly with two different gallery shows. One curator approached me saying, "We love your 'Not For Sale' series and want to build a conversation about archival practices around it." We collaborated. The other called to say, "We're doing a show on 'The African Body' and need a Black male photographer." My work was just a checkbox. In the first, I had agency; in the second, I was a token.

AKUA STUDIOS:

Beyond just "being seen", what does meaningful representation look like to you in practice?

KOFI:

Meaningful representation is structural and sustainable. It looks like:

· Creative Freedom: I am commissioned to shoot a fashion story about "Quietude" or "Afrofuturism," not just "The Black Experience." It's the freedom to be boring, experimental, abstract, or universal, just as my white counterparts are.

· Decision-Making Power: It means having Black curators, editors, gallerists, and funding bodies who control budgets, shape narratives, and greenlight projects. It's about who gets to define what is "good" or "important" art.

· Economic Investment: It's being paid equitably for my work and having my art collected by major institutions at the same value as my peers. It's grants and residencies that don't just fund "diversity projects" but fund Black artists to pursue their wildest ambitions, whatever they may be.

In practice, it's a creative ecosystem where my existence isn't the subject of the work, but the perspective from which I create is valued as a critical part of the cultural fabric.

AKUA STUDIOS:

How would you wish to see the creative industries evolve in the next 5 years? What would need to change structurally?

KOFI:

In five years, I want to see the industry move from diversity as a PR initiative to equity as an infrastructure.

Structurally, this requires:

1. Democratizing Curation: Mandate that curation teams and selection panels are diverse at all levels, not just in entry-level roles. This changes what art gets platformed from the root.

2. Transparent Funding & Pricing: Institutions and publishers should adopt transparent pay scales and make their funding application data public to address racial and gender pay gaps.

3. Invest in Black-Led Institutions: Instead of forcing Black art into white cubes that don't know how to contextualize it, major funders and corporate sponsors need to redirect significant resources to support and amplify the Black-led galleries, journals, and collectives that have been doing this work for decades, often with little support.

4. Art History Reformation: Art schools and university curricula must decolonize their reading lists and canon, formally integrating Black and non-Western art theory and history as foundational, not elective.