Achiampong’s multi-disciplinary Relic Traveller project imagines a near future in which a Relic Travellers’ alliance is formed by the African Union. Equipped with space travel technology, the Relic Travellers go to the West to explore deserted landscapes and architectures, relics of a colonial past. Their mission is to collect the vocal testimonies of those historically oppressed through colonialism, capitalism and globalisation, and as the artist states, the ‘stories and experiences of people who have not yet been allowed to be healed or learned from.’
Two of the Relic films, flags and a new series of Relic space suits are shown here. The project was partly inspired by two events that coincided in 2016 – the UK voting to leave the European Union and the African Union announcing a new international passport scheme. Achiampong imagines a future in which the West has driven itself into decline through separatist politics, while Africa has evolved into a prosperous and harmonious union responsible for shaping the future of our planet.
The testimonies collected by the Relic Travellers form the voice-over narratives of Achiampong’s Relic films and are used by the African Union to govern responsibly from the bottom up. The artist’s concept of ‘Sanko-time’ is at the core of the project. It is based in the Twi word Sankofa, which means ‘to go back and retrieve.’ For Achiampong this is a cyclical concept of time, ‘using the past to prepare for the future.’