Sound installation, performance activation
Salvaged compressor, inner tubes, copper wire, and 100 bronze bells
Created during the Artlife Residency for Artitude MMXXVI
2026
Artlife Matters, Achimota School, Art Department, Accra, 2026.
Photograph Artlife Matters.
The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born is a performance-activated sound installation reflecting on the social, economic, and political conditions that led to the collapse of Ghana’s premier tyre manufacturing enterprise, Firestone Ghana (Bonsa Tyre Factory). Formulated as part of an ongoing research body, the installation traces the vacuum left by the cessation of domestic rubber processing and local production—a shift that ended historical trade networks and catalyzed the surge of second-hand tyre imports currently defining West African road infrastructure.
Drawing on sonic memories of Achimota School and industrial plant operations, the work centers on the acoustic function of the bell: the morning rising bell of the institution and the shift-closing bell of the factory floor, each signaling structural transitions, labor cycles, and new historical epochs. During activation, the performance pairs the repetitive movement of a bell boy with a vulcaniser winding machinery to life. With each chime, the installation questions whether the transformative agency capable of driving structural renewal has arrived, or if we remain in waiting for an intervention to rectify the decline of our post-independence industrial anchors.
The work takes its title from the 1968 novel by Ghanaian author and fellow Achimota alumnus Ayi Kwei Armah.