Nubuke Foundation hosts Italian artist Alberto Gianfreda for ‘Roar and Crash’ next month

The Nubuke Foundation is set to host Italian artist Alberto Gianfreda for Roar and Crash, a performative workshop merging research, production and education in the field of sculpture, taking place from September 2 to 6, 2025.

Born from a desire for mutual understanding and cultural exchange, the project explores themes of stereotyping and the oversimplification of “distant places,” in favour of meaningful encounters and profound, reciprocal understanding between people, artistic practices and cultures. At the heart of Roar and Crash is a symbolic and collaborative process: handcrafted ceramic animals made in Italy will be combined with Ghanaian ceramic vessels through acts of destruction and reconstruction.

This expressive approach, developed by Gianfreda, will be shared and expanded through the participation of young Ghanaian artists. The proximity and fusion of fragments from different traditions will give rise to unique, ever-evolving sculptural forms created through a dynamic process of fragmentation and reassembly on a flexible metal framework.

Gianfreda emphasises how this creative process becomes a space for reflection, exchange and shared understanding. “The act of breaking an object, though painful and traumatic, is a necessary condition for different traditions to meet without one dominating the other. An intact object may appear larger, stronger or more important within a composition, whereas fragments—despite their differences—hold equal value and significance.”

The results of the workshop will be presented to the public on Saturday, September 6, 2025, at 12:00pm at the Nubuke Foundation in Accra, in the presence of the Ambassador of Italy to Ghana, Laura Ranalli. A conversation with the artist will follow. The works will remain on display until the end of September 2025.

The initiative is part of the Erasmus International Programme, organised in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna (Italy), Sunyani Technical University (Ghana) and artist and lecturer Frederick Ebenezer Okai, with the patronage of the Embassy of Italy in Ghana. A special thanks to Silvia Zanella, cultural promoter and project coordinator, for facilitating the dialogue and connections between the institutions involved, and for her ongoing commitment to fostering Italian-Ghanaian cultural exchange.

Nubuke Foundation is a private visual art and cultural institution based in Accra, Ghana. Founded in 2006, it serves as a nexus for arts and culture across the country while supporting the artistic practice of emerging and established Ghanaian artists. The foundation’s programming includes exhibitions, art talks, seminars, workshops and spaces for drama, poetry, music and film collaborations. Nubuke Foundation is a member of the Arts Collaboratory Network.

Arts Collaboratory (AC) is a network of twenty-five diverse arts organisations in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Europe. AC is a trans-local ecosystem, focusing on art practices and processes of social change and working with communities within and beyond the arts.

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