Barima Owusu-Nyantekyi: Grain Childe

Like any good diasporan, my childhood was partly spent in the home of my grandmother, matriarch of a popular Tropical Modernist house in Kumasi, Ghana where the light travels through it in a rectilinear rhythm of angles, shutters and contrasting gradients. When I turned 13, two events happened: my grandmother passed away and shortly afterwards, her house became the only childhood home I am still welcome in.

Crucially, my grandmother’s passing took much of the house’s social spirit with her. A home that hosted and feted many relatives and beloved friends now houses only a few family members and children keeping its light alive.

This series is a meditation on the changes to some of my happiest memories – the freedom and wonder of an endless-seeming childhood, the dynamism and space of midcentury architecture, and the occupation of a spacious household – and the absences that now characterise them, often lit by a strong source. In the manner of a ghost light.

This image is part of a wider series that was submitted and selected by the judges as one of three standout series from the competition.

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