Naasra Yeti, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, Pieter Hugo

Artwork Overview

Naasra Yeti, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2009
Where object was made: Ghana
Material/technique: digital chromogenic color print mounted to Dibond
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 980 x 980 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 38 9/16 x 38 9/16 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 39 1/2 x 39 1/2 x 2 1/4 in
Weight (Weight): 30 lbs
Credit line: Museum purchase: Helen Foresman Spencer Art Acquisition Fund
Accession number: 2011.0344
Not on display

If you wish to reproduce this image, please submit an image request

Images

Label texts

Exhibition Label: "Roots and Journeys: Encountering Global Arts and Cultures," Jul-2011, Nancy Mahaney During 2009-2010 South African artist Pieter Hugo photographed the people and landscape of an expansive dump of obsolete technology in Ghana. The area, on the outskirts of a slum known as Agbogbloshie, is referred to by local inhabitants as Sodom and Gomorrah. This photograph depicts a young girl named Naasra Yeti who stands boldly facing the camera in a full-length pose, with a bowl perched atop her head. Her solitary image standing defiantly alone among a digital wasteland collapses notions of time. How can this be the present when it looks a fast-fowarding to an apocalyptic end of the world, or a distant medieval setting removed from our contemporary existence? The cycles of history and the lifespan of our technology are both clearly apparent in this cemetery of industrialized artifacts. We are also reminded of the fragility of information. Documents, stories and data that were once stored on these machines are now just black smoke and melted plastic.