Rita Mawuena Benissan
One Must Be Seated
Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town
13 November 2024 - 5 October 2025
Still from One Must Be Seated, 2024
Film
Image by Michael "Kwame Pocho" Dakwa
Courtesy of the artist and Gallery 1957
Still from One Must Be Seated, 2024
Film
Image by Michael "Kwame Pocho" Dakwa
Courtesy of the artist and Gallery 1957
Still from One Must Be Seated, 2024
Film
Image by Michael "Kwame Pocho" Dakwa
Courtesy of the artist and Gallery 1957
Detail of We Process at Sunrise, 2024
Embroidery on canvas, 250 x 500cm
Image: Nii Odzenma
Courtesy of the artist and Gallery 1957
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) presents One Must Be Seated, a solo exhibition by Ghanaian-American artist Rita Mawuena Benissan. Deeply rooted within her Ghanaian culture, Benissan’s practice has particular focus on the reimagining of the royal umbrella and stool, symbols of Akan chieftaincy. The exhibition explores the enstoolment of a prospective chief, akin to coronation; a call to take their rightful seat in the stool that has been chosen for them.
Through tapestry, sculpture, photography and video, Benissan’s work highlights and celebrates the rich traditions of Ghanaian culture, with a focus on Asante customs. The royal umbrella has been used since at least the 17th century; it transforms the individual underneath it, attributing significant status. Different sizes, colours, and unique gold totems that crown the umbrella canopy are seen as they move with the court in lively procession. Under the umbrella, the chief and his thoughts are hidden from the heavens above, prohibiting even God from accessing them.
Rita Mawuena Benissan delicately reimagines this cultural object through the use of the archive. As we see in works like The Triumphant King Rules (Ζ†hene a wadi Nkonim No Di Tumi) (2023) portraits of past chiefs are embedded within the fabric of the umbrella which is traditionally made with woven Kente cloth and reinterpreted in rich velvet by the artist. Her works are made by the same craftsmen who make the royal umbrellas for the palace in Kumasi, the Asante capital. By intentionally naming these artisans as collaborators, the artist honours the hands that uphold the traditions of the chieftaincy.
"The exhibition layout simulates the enstoolment tradition with each successive gallery symbolising a stage in the process," explains Beata America, the curator of the exhibition, and Assistant Curator at Zeitz MOCAA. Prompted by the new film, One Must Be Seated (2024), from which the exhibition takes its title, you are invited to be nominated and confronted by the ancestors. "Have you not seen the seat that we made for you? You were made to be seated." Walking through, one passes the palace at dusk, depicted in an intricately woven tapestry, We Process at Sunrise (2024); receives a powerful affirmation of growth and renewal in the green shades of We Give Power to You (2024), another umbrella work; and is ultimately led to the final golden throne. America adds: "It will embrace its chosen, sealing the bond between leader and legacy. When the time comes, will you be open to receive the call?"
One Must Be Seated forms part of an ongoing series of in-depth, research-based solo exhibitions by Zeitz MOCAA that bring into focus and contextualise the practices of important artists from Africa and the Diaspora, and those whose work focuses on seminal topics in the African present.
This exhibition was curated by Beata America (biography), Assistant Curator at Zeitz MOCAA
Zeitz MOCAA - Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa
S Arm Rd, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, 8001