- [Elyan] One question that I'd really like to hear
from you about is, how to properly pronounce
what many Americans say as akwaaba, but that's not correct.
- It's really akua'ba. Akwaaba means welcome.
Akua'ba means doll like the fertility doll.
It's akua'ba. - [Elyan] So could you
tell us a little bit about which ethnic groups
or groups of people in Ghana that the dolls are
specifically affiliated with, and what language that's in?
- It's really from Twi language and it's pronounced as sounds like C-H-U-E
which is Chue but it's spelled as T-W-I, Twi.
So it's primarily from that language by the Ashanti people in Ghana.
Historically akua'ba doll is used as a way for women to wish for fertility.
And it's kind of spiritually aligned with the beliefs
of the people in the Ashanti group that if they want to
have children they use that as a symbol of that
wish to have children. And that eventually for
some reason it happens that they would have real children.
- [Elyan] Why, for you do you think that so many tourists
and foreigners are really interested in those dolls?
What do you think they see in them? - I would first say
it's because this story has been told over and over again.
It's a very interesting story, and specially for foreigners
it's such a unique story, so when they hear that,
that gets their attention, they wanna have a piece of it.
I'm talking from an artist's perspective, I'm also an artist.
I personally have produced them when I was in college in Ghana
at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
So, we produced them and we have learned to know
what kind of features the foreigners would want
to buy and then we would just literally produced them for the foreigners.
- [Elyan] Yeah, I would love to hear more about that,
what was your experience making them for tourist?
And did you make them, like a little bit different for you?
- Most likely, mostly different and make it look
sometimes we kind of project the features, and which we learned that they like to see
and then they would be buying those. - Like what for example?
- The projected features, the projected lips, projected
nose, and the eyes bulging they would be drawn towards that.
- [Elyan] That is so interesting. - Yeah, this is from
an artist's perspective if you want some answers
maybe from the tourist's perspective perhaps it would be a good
idea to have a tourist. - [Elyan] So the last
question that I've been asking everyone is when you hear
the title of the exhibition which is, African Brilliance,
what comes to mind? For you personally.
- African Brilliance. I thought about it as,
oh, this is a showcase of what Africans are capable of producing.
And it has such a positive connotation that we are not backwards,
we are also just as brilliant as anybody around the world.
Except that some of the time we don't have as much
opportunities as other people have around the world,
especially in the western world in the Americas.