Eugene Ankomah for an exhibition on water in Athens

British-Ghanaian visual artist, Ankomah will remind the world of the importance of water in what is set to be an electrifying art performance at the Technohoros Art Gallery, in Athens, Greece from September 30.

Eugene Ankomah, who in April this year was described as an  ‘Enfant Terible’ after an interview on Sky TV’s ‘Shoot The Messenger’ show with the broadcaster and journalist Henry Bonsu, will return to Athens to collaborate with Artist and Curator Katerina Fanouraki, in this collaborative performance. He was invited earlier in April as a distinguished Guest Artist to take part in the International Group Exhibition entitled ‘Homosapiens In Love’ which took place in Athens.

On that occasion Ankomah’s live performance went down a storm, and was described by the enthralled audience as provocative, educational and brilliant. Curator Katerina Fanouraki described him as a cultural heretic. Now Eugene and Fanouraki are set to give another partly tribal influenced performance on the very thing humans cannot do without, Water.

The upcoming exhibition, titled ‘Thirst’ is created by Aristi Costopoulou and it aims to present the human body in the extreme probability of complete water lack, while averting from the painful direction of its title. Through the exhibition questions emerge, among them being why people planned and evolved civilizations that rely totally on water’s exhausted use? Could we develop civilizations without or with minimal need of water? How would the prevailing culture seem without this extended use of water?

Gradually, artists reveal an interest on the holistic approach of the water availability, that we are used to consider for granted. The medical dictionaries define the term as a sensation, or desire, need and motivation. However, a show can reflect even more representative mechanisms of the human body, pushing it to its limits.

In contemporary art, performances are among the aesthetic evolutions of conceptual and installation art movements. The complementary elements used in “Thirst” like the action, the performers’ cultural contradictions, the movements and the rhythm and sounds are considered equally fascinating. The industrial materials of today’s culture indicate the underlying reason. The heart though is in the merging of the Western plethora with the African utopia icons, through unsettled and unconscious exchanges of self destruction and regeneration acts. Their work underlines the degree of dependency between continents, on the issue of water.