Accra As Seen By Alvaro Barrington
For Alvaro Barrington, understanding a place begins with listening. Born in Venezuela, raised between Grenada and New York, and now based in London, the artist has developed a practice informed by the cultural environments around him. Music, community, and the visual language of everyday life are central to his work, which moves freely between painting, textiles, and installation.
In ‘As Seen By,’ Barrington travels to Accra, Ghana, where he is preparing his first exhibition on the African continent at Limbo Museum. Guided by Ghanaian hip-hop artist Teshieboi, he encounters the city through its people, traditions, and creative communities. From a local weaving workshop to the city's coastline, kitchens, and nightlife, the film offers an intimate portrait of Accra through the eyes of an artist discovering it for the first time.
In conversation with Dominique Petit-Frère, founder and director of Limbo Museum, Barrington reflects on the relationship between local culture and artistic expression, and the importance of approaching unfamiliar places with curiosity rather than preconceived ideas. ‘How do I make sure I don't come here on a dominating energy, but a listening energy?’ he asks in the film.
This will be your first exhibition on the African continent. How do you feel?
It was written. The universe. I really believe that. The universe is like an ocean, and it moves. If you’re swimming too hard against the waves, then you’re not really in the flow of the universe. If I’m trying too hard for anything, it means I’m not listening.
It’s great to feel the texture of this and also see this institution. The physical form of it feels like it’s open to possibilities. Some spaces don’t feel like they were designed for an artist to just do stuff. There are a few spaces where you go, “Oh, this is freedom.”
How do you think about the relationship between local culture and a global audience?
The world is in the race to globalization. It moves so fast that people are thinking about locality much more specifically. In modernism, things took a while before they arrived anywhere. Today, Taylor Swift fans get the music at the same time. It doesn’t matter where you are.
But if you’re in Nashville or New York, there’s a certain locality of those artists that you feel in that region. The distribution means now it’s global. So, locally, how can it feel unique here? I think of myself as a global artist, even though I think of myself as an American artist as well.
