ANO
Institute of Arts and Knowledge
A living ecology of knowledge, culture and practice.
Its question is what awakens us: to ourselves, to one another, to the living world, to what we inherit, and to what we might become. ANO explores what Pan-African and Diasporic cultural worlds can teach us about that awakening, and how those ways of being can generate new forms of art, knowledge, education, institutions and ecological relationship.
The name
ANO is named for the Akan word ɛno, grandmother, the fount of cultural wisdom, and for the Esperanto suffix -ano, which denotes belonging.
“…the festivals that were to me Gesamtkunstwerke, total works of art, almost always mediated to me by the old ladies, the grandmothers, who sat and watched all with the eyes of wisdom.”Nana Oforiatta Ayim
The foundation
Sunsum
ANO begins from Sunsum, the spirit that animates people, land and objects alike, in which everything is interconnected and interdependent.
In this world the material and the immaterial, the human and the more-than-human, those who came before and those who will come after are interdependent on one another.
Anibue
Anibue, in Twi, means the opening of the eye.
The word has also been associated with enlightenment, education and social progress. For ANO, its deeper resonance lies in the act of becoming awake to ourselves, to one another, to the living world, to what we inherit, and to what we might become.
Sunsum
What the world is: animated and interconnected.
Anibue
How we come to see it: the opening of the eye.
Practice
How that way of seeing becomes work: exploring, documenting, translating and creating.
Ayan · Afahye · Adae
The three movements of the practice: Ayan, creating; Afahye, gathering; Adae, learning.
The people
Those who make this ecology: founders, fellows, residents, contributors, elders and the communities whose knowledge it carries.
Founder
- Nana Oforiatta Ayim
Fellows
- Désiré Eli-Zafoe 2019
- Benedicta Gokah 2019
- Angela Okorie 2019
- Taeya Boi-Doku 2024
- Fowota Mortoo 2024
Contributors
- Ophelia Akiwumi Architect, two ANO houses
- DK Osseo-Asare Architect, Kiosk Museum and Fufuzela
Elders
- Nyornuwofia Argorsor
- Kofi Argorsor
- Etwieba Barima Boakye Nhyira
- Professor J. H. Kwabena Nketia
- Dr. Datey-Kumordzie
- Sobonfu Somé