Faces of West Africa:
Photographs by David A. Hoekema
Atrium Gallery, Second Christian Reformed Church
Grand Haven, MI
August 31 – November 20, 2008
Exhibit
reception following 10 am service on Sunday, September 21
“Everyone is a
child of God; no one is a child of the earth alone”
(Akan proverb)
To travel in West Africa as a white American is to be an
outsider and an insider—outsider by culture and color, insider because of the warmth
with which one is invited to participate in Ghana’s communities and families. The hardships and dislocations brought by global
politics and economics have not loosened the powerful bonds that unite every individual to
parents and uncles and “aunties” and cousins and—most important of
all—to the elders of the family. Some of
these are alive, while others, still honored and considered part of the family, are now in
the realm of the ancestors.
Christians are more numerous than adherents of Islam or
traditional religion, and in the churches of Ghana and its neighbors a visitor cannot help
but be caught up in the spirit of joyful celebration.
Yet among Christians, Moslems, and followers of traditional practices one
finds a spirit of cooperation and respect, rather than hostility. If we are all children of God, why should we doubt
that God looks after us all? And do we not owe
the same care to each other?
The images in
this exhibit, many of them exhibited at Calvin College’s downtown gallery in Grand
Rapids in 2007, were taken during two extended periods of residence as Director of the
Calvin College Study in Ghana program and during a brief visit to its neighbors to the
east, Togo and Benin. I hope that they convey
something of the strength and resourcefulness of a society that honors its past even while
living intensely in the present. In the faces,
the festivals, and even the fabrics of contemporary Ghana, there is a spirit of mutuality
and interdependence far removed from the individualist patterns of North American life. Members of the art committee at Second Christian
Reformed Church encouraged me to highlight the faces of West Africa in selecting images
for this exhibit, faces of young and old that convey the hopes, joys, and concerns of
people who have learned to cope with challenges that most of us would find
insurmountable—rampant tropical diseases, poor health care and education, ineffective
government, and persistent poverty—without surrendering their spirits to despair. In economic comparisons among the nations of the
world, West Africans usually place very near the bottom; but in studies that try to
measure the sense of happiness and well-being, they usually are found near the top.
Another Akan proverb observes, “The tree that does not know how to dance will
be taught by the wind.” We learn as we
grow how to relate to others, how to bend and bow, how to move in concert and not in
opposition to those around us. My
photographer’s eye was drawn to the people and the events that embody this dance in
which all—even visitors—are invited to participate. Photographs cannot convey, but perhaps viewers will
be able to imagine, the rich palette of sounds that accompanied these scenes—singing,
drumming, shouting, clapping, brass bands and volleys of celebratory gunfire, with lively
conversations going on in several languages at once.
I am grateful to the art committee at Second CRC for inviting me to introduce
another community to West African people and culture, and delighted to have the
opportunity in this wonderful exhibit space to incorporate fabrics and sculptures that
place my photographs in a richer context.
All photographs in the exhibit were made with a Nikon D-70 digital camera and one
of several Nikon lenses (most frequently an 18-70mm compact zoom). Image editing, using Picasa and Paintshop Pro, was
kept to a minimum--the intense colors of West African life need no enhancement. I understand photography to be an art of selection
and emphasis, not independent creation, in which visual poetry is discovered rather than
imposed. It is my hope that these images of
places and people I have come to treasure will disclose something of the invisible as well
as the visible dimensions of Ghanaian cultural, social, and religious life.
About the Photographer
David A. Hoekema, Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College, served as Director of
the Calvin Study in Ghana program in 2004 and 2005, and he has just been appointed
director once again for 2010. His areas of
teaching and scholarship include political and social philosophy, philosophy of the arts,
and African thought and culture. Among his
published books are Rights and Wrongs: Coercion, Punishment and the State (Susquehanna University Press); Campus Rules and Moral Community (Rowman and
Littlefield); and a collection of essays, Christianity
and Culture in the Crossfire (Eerdmans), co-edited with Bobby Fong. Hoekema was born in Paterson, New Jersey, but when
he was three his father, Rev. Anthony A. Hoekema, accepted a call to a church in Grand
Rapids, where he attended Seymour, Baxter, and Oakdale Christian Schools and graduated
from Central Christian High School. He
received the B.A. in philosophy from Calvin College in 1972 and the Ph.D. in philosophy
from Princeton University in 1981.
Prior to his appointment as Academic Dean at Calvin in 1992
he was a member of the Philosophy faculty at St. Olaf College (1977-84) and Executive
Director of the American Philosophical Association at the University of Delaware
(1984-92). After completing his term as dean
he served as Interim Vice President for Student Life at Calvin and then as a full-time
member of the Philosophy faculty. In recent
years he has assisted in developing Calvin’s minor program in African and African
Diaspora Studies, of which he was director in spring 2008.
Hoekema has pursued photography as an avocation since college days, when his
photographs were published regularly in Calvin publications, the Grand Rapids Press, and
both The Banner and its notorious imitator, The Bananer. Hoekema’s photographs of
Southeast Asia have been exhibited at St. Olaf College, where he formerly served on the
Philosophy faculty and as director of the Term in the Far East. His photographs of Ghana were featured in a solo
exhibition at (106) Division, Calvin College’s downtown Grand Rapids gallery space,
in October, 2007, and selected for the Festival of the Arts exhibit in Grand Rapids in
June, 2008.
CONTACT
INFORMATION
David A. Hoekema, Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College
dhoekema@calvin.edu 616 526-6750 (office) 616 296-1300 (home)
The gallery is open Sundays after
services, Mon.-Tue.-Thu. 9:00-4:00, Wed.-Fri. 9:00-noon; call 616-842-0710 for special
arrangements. |
