GROWING

GROWING ON ME

The project emerged of a stay in Ghana and especially the meeting with the Ghanaian Master Carver, Nana Amako, whom I first meet in Jan. ’09, when visiting Aburi Industri. I was in a trip as part of FairTrade Designers project on wood, a project founded by DIPP, Dansk Erhverv arranged by Magrete Stage. Aburi Industri is a workers’ cooperative located on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana’s capital. Here, Nana Amako works with about 400 other wood carvers inside their small ‘shops’ or in joined workshops. The work of Nana showed me, that he’s a master in wood carving and highly skille in formgiving, and I immediately had a great desire to collaborate with him.

Later FairTrade Designers was invited to exhibit at Koldinghus at the exhibition called ‘Stof til eftertanke’. FTD decided to create three collars, in three different materials, which were the materials FTD were working with at the time. I selected wood and this became an opportunity for me to resume the idea of a cooperation with Nana and the proces started. In Denmark I started up sketching and working on small models, that related to the human body.

Also small ‘worry stone’ like … sculptures, that may help relieve stress and keep your sensory inputs busy. A thinking-touching, hand-sculpture. For the table or the pocket. Good for letting the thoughts wander, because you it lets your hand play with the surface of the form, like when the artisan sended spirit and thought into her hand and on into the shape.

Some inspired by the open structure like the trees growing and wrapping around other trees in Ghana.

From here I started to let the proces focus on the collar shaping. I worked in different materials and eventually worked out the shape I wanted.

In May ’10 I went back and again visited Master Carver Nana and here I also meet his wife Evelyn, who is secretary of the 400 carvers at Cooperative Aburi Industri. Leading up to this trip I had created the final collar in foam and brought this for Nana to work from. He carved two wooden collars in a week.

FairTrade Designers three ‘collars’ on show at the exhibition ‘Stof til eftertanke’ at Koldinghus 2009.