At Zeitz MOCAA, a landmark survey traces a decade of Zohra Opoku’s practice through themes of resilience, renewal, and the elements of Water, Breath, and Ground
Zohra Opoku, I am the terror in the storm who guards the great one [in] the conflict. Sharp Knife strikes for me. Ash god provides coolness for me. Part 2, 2024. Screenprint on vintage mixed cotton and linen, screenprint applications, embroidery, hand stitch, 252 x 154cm. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.
Surveying a decade of Zohra Opoku’s practice, ‘We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight’ draws its title from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead and sets a curatorial framework grounded in passage, resilience, and renewal. Co-curated by Beata America and Dr Phokeng Setai, the exhibition brings together a series rarely seen side by side, contextualised through Opoku’s studio materials, archival family photographs, and textiles that function as vessels of memory. Anchored by recurring elements of Water, Breath, and Ground, the show foregrounds the environment as both subject and collaborator in Opoku’s work. It also highlights the artist’s dual German and Ghanaian heritage, symbolised through installation structures referencing the traveller’s tree, a marker of orientation and mobility. In conversation, Beata America reflects on the curatorial choices, Opoku’s evolving practice, and the exhibition’s role in advancing Zeitz MOCAA’s Pan-African mission.
ART AFRICA: The exhibition is titled ‘We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight,’ drawing from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. How did you and your co-curator, Dr Phokeng Setai, decide that this text and its themes of passage and resilience were the best framework for a survey of Zohra Opoku’s work?
Beata America: We wanted the title of the exhibition to encapsulate where Zohra has come from and where she continues to go. The ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead is a crucial source within her most significant body of work, Myths of Eternal Life (2020-2024). A significant series that marks a palpable shift in Zohra’s practice. The title is an affirmation and quiet declaration of the resilience and fortitude the artist has shown throughout her career, signaling brighter paths ahead.
Installation views, ‘We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight’ by Zohra Opoku. Photos by Slater Studio, courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA.
You mentioned that the curatorial intent is to “position Opoku at the centre of her universe.” Given that this is a survey show tracing a decade of her work, how did you structure the exhibition to show her growth while maintaining her central role as a “protector of, and protected by, the life-giving sun”?
The nature of a survey exhibition allows for a particular highlight to be done on a portion of an artist’s career. Focusing on the last decade allowed us to see the evolution in Zohra’s career and practice, as well as to view series that aren’t usually exhibited together in conversation with one another. We included a room in the exhibition that focuses on practice and process, which we think of as the “studio room.” This room shares resources and studio ephemera that contextualise some of the series in the exhibition and Zohra’s studio practice.
Installation views, ‘We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight’ by Zohra Opoku. Photos by Slater Studio, courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA.
The exhibition highlights three recurring elements—Water, Breath, and Ground. Were these themes present in Opoku’s work from the very beginning, or did you identify them as key threads that emerged over the last decade of her practice?
The environment plays a significant role in Zohra’s artistic practice, from using the sun as an active natural dyeing agent to appreciating the Earth’s elements, which help ground and centre us, and from which Zohra often draws inspiration. This, in turn, helped shape the curatorial framework of the exhibition and its design in an organic manner. These three recurring elements anchor the works: Water, indicating the fluidity of practice through the artist’s process. Breath, the ultimate life force which feeds the human spirit, lingering between the veil of life and death. Ground, the stabilising force of nature, a place of comfort and rootedness, imbued with identity and familial belonging.
Installation views, ‘We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight’ by Zohra Opoku. Photos by Slater Studio, courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA.
Zohra Opoku’s practice bridges her German and Ghanaian heritages. How does the exhibition’s installation design physically or conceptually represent this dialogue between different geographies and histories?
The exhibition design, overseen by our Exhibitions Manager, Julia Kabat, effectively incorporates natural wood into the space. Multiple wooden structures in the exhibition fan out to mimic the ravenala plant, also known as the traveller’s tree or traveller’s palm, which is at the core of the series Hybridity (2019). This tree grows in accordance with the sun in an east-west orientation, helping wandering travellers find their bearings in their environment. For Opoku, this plant, which has taken root across multiple tropical regions, reflects the limited mobility imposed on African people through bureaucratic borders. People who have historically been forced to migrate and establish roots in new places. This orientation is mirrored at either end of the exhibition, aligned along an east-west axis.
Installation views, ‘We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight’ by Zohra Opoku. Photos by Slater Studio, courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA.
The press release notes that Opoku’s work uses “fabric…as a vessel for storytelling, sanctification, and the act of remembrance.” How do works like Unravelled Threads or Give Me Back My Black Dolls showcase this transformative power of textiles?
In the early series Unravelled Threads (2017), Opoku took an intentional exploration into her identity. She grew up estranged from her Ghanaian heritage, meeting her father once in 2003 before he passed away in 2004. Later in life, she received a collection of family photographs depicting him as Ghanaian royalty—a cherished archive that she screen-printed onto cotton and canvas in the series, alongside images of herself and her mother—threading together fragments of forgotten family memory with these archival photographs. Some are blurred, while others are distinct, but they all carry subtle undertones of mourning and evoke a sense of a long-awaited reunion. She also utilises fabrics from family members that hold sentimental value, adding an extra layer of care and consideration.
Installation views, ‘We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight’ by Zohra Opoku. Photos by Slater Studio, courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA.
As a museum dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, how does this exhibition on Zohra Opoku’s work further Zeitz MOCAA’s mission to deepen art historical knowledge and position African practices in global dialogue?
This exhibition forms part of the museum’s ongoing series of in-depth, research-driven solo exhibitions that centre and contextualise the practices of significant artists from Africa and its diaspora, as well as those engaging with pivotal themes in Pan-African history. Zohra has had a long and successful career, both on the continent and abroad, but her work has not yet been significantly exhibited here in South Africa. So, it’s an incredible honour for Zeitz MOCAA to host her long-awaited museum solo exhibition.
‘We Proceed in the Footsteps of the Sunlight’ is on view at Zeitz MOCAA until 4 October 2026. For more information, visit Zeitz MOCAA.
