Akwaba

Akwaba is the traditional greeting in Côte d’Ivoire—a word that embodies welcome, hospitality, and the spirit of receiving others. This series was developed across four of the country’s principal plantation regions, dedicated to the cultivation of cocoa, rubber, oil palm, and teak. While these monocultures have generated considerable economic wealth, they have also transformed vast areas of the landscape through industrial expansion, replacing native forests with highly controlled productive environments. The resulting landscape appears lush and abundant, yet beneath its verdant surface lies the displacement of indigenous ecosystems, often accompanied by severe environmental consequences, including water scarcity and contamination. The installations evoke the ancient deities once associated with the sacred forests, many of them rooted in the spiritual traditions of the diverse ethnic communities of Côte d’Ivoire. The sculptures are constructed from textiles originating from the cultural groups inhabiting the regions where these plantations have progressively expanded. In doing so, the works weave together ancestral knowledge, cultural memory, spiritual belief, craftsmanship, and a profound respect for the natural world—values that generations before us sought to preserve and transmit. Rather than lamenting what has been lost, Akwaba proposes a space in which memory, landscape, and material culture converge, inviting reflection on the fragile balance between economic progress, ecological transformation, and cultural continuity.