One Must Be Seated
An exhibition in Cape Town celebrates Ghana's royal customs
I first encountered Ghanaian-American artist Rita Mawuena Benissan’s work during my one-week trip to Accra at the 2024 Ghana Cultural Week for a British Vogue writing assignment. The beautiful, embroidered tapestries and giant umbrellas showcase Ghana’s rich traditions and culture and her ancestral bonds full of history, are eye-catching. I became an instant fan of Benissan’s work and was glad that I was able to hear more about her art practice at one of the few artists studio visits that were held at the event. Having also exhibited at the 1-54 Contemporary Art Fair in 2024, it’s an impressive achievement to now have a solo exhibition at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town.
Titled One Must Be Seated, the interdisciplinary artist exhibits a series of works through photography, video, tapestry and sculpture that focus on Asante royal customs and delve into the enstoolment ceremony. This West African ceremonial process installs a new leader into office, similar to a coronation. In Asante traditions, chieftains acquire intricately decorated carved stools that are incorporated into the rite as a symbol of their power.
In the show, Benissan reimagines the royal umbrella which has been part of the Asante custom since the 17th century, through the use of archive. The umbrellas– traditionally woven with Kente cloth but reworked in velvet are all different in colour and size and signify the hierarchies of chieftaincy. They not only shield the king, queen or chief from the hot weather but also communicate personality traits to viewers while hiding their thoughts from the heavens. The artist who herself has a chieftaincy legacy, reconnects with her Ghanaian cultural heritage and redesigns the umbrellas using patterns of human figures and ornamental motifs.
Benissan collaborates with the same local craftsmen who make the royal umbrellas for the palace of Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti region, at the heart of Asante culture. With this partnership, she honours and preserves history and continues the traditions of craftsmanship while also looking to the future with the reinterpretation that explores questions of identity, being and memory.
“The exhibition layout simulates the enstoolment tradition with each successive gallery symbolising a stage in the process,” says Beata America, the curator of One Must Be Seated and Assistant Curator at Zeitz MOCAA. Audiences are invited to be nominated by the ancestors– a call to take their rightful seat in the stool chosen for them. “Have you not seen the seat that we made for you? You were made to be seated.” Continuing with the walkthrough, seeing tapestries, umbrellas and more, viewers eventually end up by the final golden throne. “It will embrace its chosen, sealing the bond between leader and legacy. When the time comes, will you be open to receive the call?” America says.
Born in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire to Ghanaian parents, Benissan moved to the United States as a child, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Apparel and Textile Design from Michigan State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography. Her works have been exhibited at the Dakar Biennale at IFAN African Art Museum in Dakar, Senegal (2022), Gallery 1957 (2023), a group show at the Venice Biennale called ‘Unapologetic WomXn: The Dream is the Truth’ (2024), and more. She is also the founder of Si Hene, an archive platform on instagram documenting Ghana’s royal history.
The exhibition is also part of a series of in-depth, research-focused curatorial programmes supported by BMW South Africa, Gucci and the Mellon Foundation.
One Must Be Seated is now open at Zeitz MOCAA until 5 October 2025.
What an interesting read, “one must be seated” is defiantly I would love to see if it does come to the UK