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0 Worldfaze is pleased to present ‘Flower Power; An Arewa Story from the South by Al Hassan Issah
for our first exhibition of the year 2025.
The exhibition is an initiative to expand the scope of Worldfaze in creating a platform that supports
local artists by showcasing their works in our gallery space.
FLOWER POWER: An Arewa Story from the South
Amid the growing influence of contemporary cultures emerging from West Africa, Hassan Issah
positions his work as an inquiry into the ornamental and symbolic codes of his community and Islamic
faith.
Drawing on a practice rooted in observation and communal engagement, initially passive but
now adopting a more critical perspective, Isaah’s visual language merges material and object cultures
into fantastical constructions where his paintings are imbued with architectural ambition, a marriage
of materials, fabrication, and subtle hints of inherited customs and histories. Through saturated colour, gold-plated embellishments, and embedded textures, he creates a tactile archive, laden with
the weight of colonial encounters and postcolonial transformation.
At the heart of this body of work lies Isaah’s exploration of “Arewa,” a traditional Hausa wedding
ceremony native to Northern Nigeria that is now widely embraced across the West African Hausa
Muslim diaspora, including Ghana. Once grounded in spiritual significance, modest customs, and
communal bonds, the Arewa ceremony has undergone a gradual metamorphosis.
Today, it increasingly reflects foreign aesthetics, class aspirations, and the politics of “the spectacle.” Issah
views this evolution not as simple modernization, but as a poignant adulteration, a cultural drift that
reflects deeper aesthetic and ideological displacements: ritual turned performance, modesty
consumed by grandeur. Isaah’s paintings do not merely document these changes; they interrogate
and reimagine them.
Drawing from the material expressions of the ceremonial henna patterns, richly
embroidered garments, equestrian processions, and symbolic gifts, he constructs tableaux where
ornamentation becomes a visual language of disruption. Influenced by fashion, design, and
architecture, his work performs acts of cultural synthesis and rupture. Victorian silhouettes, Arabian
aesthetics, and Mediterranean opulence converge to become traditional Arewa motifs, capturing a
hybrid reality shaped by postcolonial inheritance and digital virality.
Historically, the Arewa ceremony, traditionally steeped in layered customs was defined by intricate,
gendered rites such as: Kamu; a lively negotiation where the groom’s family symbolically “fetches”
the bride from her relatives, and Sa-lalle; a henna night filled with music and laughter, where the
elder women adorn the bride.
Yinin Biki marks the main day of celebration with prayers, feasting, and the formal union of the couple. Prior to or following this, Zaman Ajo offers the bride marital advice from older women, reinforcing values of discipline and respect. Budar Baki; the unveiling of her face, often requires a symbolic offering from the groom. Sayan Baki; the “opening of the mouth,” symbolizes the bride’s first words as a wife.
These rituals were tightly choreographed along gender lines, with roles carefully assigned and spaces clearly designated. Women would participate in henna ceremonies, which were applied by an elderly woman, often amid playful resistance, while men observed from a distance. The couple would have had limited contact before and during the ceremony, and family elders refrained from excessive celebration.
In contrast, today’s Arewa ceremonies often span several days, held in luxury venues, featuring
extravagant décor, celebrity appearances, and performative displays, markers of affluence rather than
tradition. Isaah’s work navigates this tension between reverence and reinvention. He documents the
transformations, not with nostalgia, but with critical sensitivity.
The celebratory procession, once a humble donkey-led journey to the groom’s home, is now replaced with curated luxury, often detached from the original context. The domesticity and sacredness of marriage as a community-rooted affair are frequently overshadowed by the allure of visual trends and aspirational aesthetics.
Issah raises key questions: What happens when ritual transforms into performance? When are
symbols stripped of their contexts and rebranded as luxury experiences? His visual inquiry serves as
both an archive and a protest, as evident in the exhibition title, “FLOWER POWER,” which draws
inspiration from the 1960s Flower Power movement, a peaceful countercultural protest that
employed flowers, art, and music as tools of resistance. Known for its vibrant imagery, floral motifs,
and free-spirited aesthetic, the movement here becomes a metaphor, framing Isaah’s use of
ornamentation and design as a quiet yet radical act of cultural reclamation.
The floral symbol, once tucked behind the ear or held in peaceful defiance, now blooms across his canvases as rhinestones, steel petals, and golden laces. At the heart of Isaah’s visual language lies a compelling contradiction: expressionless portraits that nonetheless pulse with emotion.
His figures, static in gaze, are animated through posture, costume, and gesture. These still bodies convey themes of love, power, and opulence central to the evolving Arewa spectacle. The absence of facial expression draws our gaze instead to the material language that envelops them. Adornment becomes narrative.
Female figures dominate his visual narratives, not as symbols of the bride in Arewa weddings but as cultural protagonists. He amplifies their role to subvert gendered assumptions in Islamic art and honour the centrality of women in these matrimonial rituals.
His women command presence, agency, and gaze. They are both muses and messengers. He raises critical questions about the tension between religious propriety and secular aesthetics within Islamic communities. Through exposed skin, stylized postures, and elaborate fashion, he challenges the limits of representation in Islamic visual culture. His depictions of women, lavishly adorned yet modest, bold yet reserved, negotiate this fragile boundary, revealing how traditional codes of modesty are constantly being reinterpreted in the face of modern visual trends.
Here, the Arewa story is not told through class signifiers. In his world, opulence is not always a symbol
of wealth or social status; instead, it serves as a vehicle for aesthetic pleasure and cultural expression.
This philosophy is materially grounded in his environment. Living in Kumasi, Ghana’s “Garden City”
and home to its largest gold deposits, it reflects his surroundings. Gold and florals recur not as mere
embellishments, but as emblems of regional identity, beauty, and abundance. His canvases bloom
with artificial bouquets made from steel, aluminium, rhinestones, lace, scuba fabric, and more. Each
work represents a material negotiation between softness and strength, as well as fragility and
permanence.
This deep materiality is what I term “metallurgical poetry.” Just as metals are beaten, heated, and reshaped in crafting processes, so too are his materials transfigured. In his world, the wedding ceremony becomes an alchemical site, where flames, colour, and cultural memory prevail.
Steel transforms into delicate flora. Final spikes, architectural symbols of protection, morph into
deadly ornaments, blurring the line between beauty and danger.
In “FLOWER POWER: An Arewa Story from the South,” Hassan Issah reclaims and reimagines tradition
not to mourn its evolution, but to illuminate its potential.
Through this exhibition, Issah offers not only a story of the Arewa wedding ceremony but also a deeply personal and political meditation on cultural transformation in a world where even love must be curated.
Curatorial text by: Nuna Adisenu-Doe
