Director: John Akomfrah
Cast: Tania Rogers, Evans Oma Hunter, Frank Parkes, Sally Sagoe
UK, 1988, 76', HDD, color
English with Turkish subtitles

In Testament, the condition of the postcolony is embodied in the figure of activist turned television reporter Abena who returns to contemporary Ghana, for the first time since the 1966 coup that ended President Kwame Nkrumah’s experiment in African socialism.

Adrift in a ‘war zone of memories’ Abena is caught in the tension between public history and private memory. The film is characterised by a depopulated frame and a deliberately cold look that evokes an emotional landscape of postcolonial trauma.

Handsworth Songs

Handsworth Songs

Testament

Testament

Who Needs A Heart

Who Needs A Heart

Speak Like A Child

Speak Like A Child

The Nine Muses

The Nine Muses

Turquerie

Turquerie

Having penetrated the Balkans in the fourteenth century, conquered Constantinople in the fifteenth, and reached the gates of Vienna in the sixteenth, the Ottoman Empire long struck fear into European hearts. 

Symbols

Symbols

Pera Museum’s Cold Front from the Balkans exhibition curated by Ali Akay and Alenka Gregorič brings together contemporary artists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

The Ottoman Way of Serving Coffee

The Ottoman Way of Serving Coffee

Coffee was served with much splendor at the harems of the Ottoman palace and mansions. First, sweets (usually jam) was served on silverware, followed by coffee serving. The coffee jug would be placed in a sitil (brazier), which had three chains on its sides for carrying, had cinders in the middle, and was made of tombac, silver or brass. The sitil had a satin or silk cover embroidered with silver thread, tinsel, sequin or even pearls and diamonds.