Installation Views of We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight of Zohra Opoku, 2025. Photos by Slater Studio. Courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA.
Zohra Opoku, a ‘Woven Storyteller,’ Is Shapeshifting Her Way into Africa’s Biggest Museums
In a recent feature for ARTnews, writer Gameli Hamelo highlights Zohra Opoku’s first major museum survey, We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight, at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. Curated by Beata America and Phokeng Setai, the exhibition surveys more than a decade of Opoku’s multidisciplinary practice across textiles, photography, installation, sculpture, and screenprint. The article emphasizes the significance of the exhibition within the legacy of Koyo Kouoh, whose longstanding support of the artist helped bring the project to fruition. Reflecting on the experience, Opoku describes the exhibition as “almost surreal,” while noting that Kouoh’s “footprint is enormous.” Organized around the themes of water, breath, and ground, the exhibition explores ritual, memory, belonging, and transformation through deeply personal and spiritual narratives.
Hamelo also examines how Opoku’s move from Germany to Ghana profoundly shaped her artistic development and connection to ancestry, identity, and cultural memory. Through works such as QueenMothers (2016), the artist engages with matriarchal histories and oral traditions in southern Ghana, while emphasizing the importance of preserving lived knowledge and collective memory: “You really wonder where all this information ends up when we don’t write it down.” The feature ultimately positions Opoku’s practice as one rooted in material experimentation and storytelling, where textiles, photography, embroidery, and collage become vehicles for exploring diasporic experience, transformation, and spiritual continuity.
