Wild & Untamed African Childhood

 


Take a journey with me…..

back to the roots of my passion for travel and found objects. This faded black and white photograph captures a moment in my life, playing atop a metal barrel alongside my sister. It was one of the vessels that carried our parents’ belongings when they made their return from England to Ghana. To us, the metal barrel was our locomotion, rolling it with our feet in rhythm and unison, experiencing the joy of being unregulated and feral.

In the backdrop of this photograph lies a world where playfulness and imagination thrived amidst relics from the past. Our childhood was a treasure trove of found objects – As children, we transformed them all into our own private worlds of make-believe. Ours was a wild and untamed childhood, where we concocted tales of expeditions across unknown lands.

We delved into ferocious ant hills, to find the elusive queen, fearlessly faced snakes, armed with stones and a sense of adventure.

The dusty halls of the medical school, the hospital where my father worked, became our secret sanctuary. We would escape after homework and wander through classrooms adorned with shelves of dark glass bottles. Each bottle held its own mystery, containing laboratory specimens that intrigued our young minds.

Each item in the distance travelled shop carries within it a connection to those days of my childhood, where imagination and exploration shaped my perspective on the world.