Na Chainkua Reindorf: On the Mawu Nyonu
The practice of Na Chainkua Reindorf (b. 1991, Ghana) intertwines painting, textiles, sculptural installations, and various other media in a world-building exercise around the histories of textiles and masquerade. The artist creates large-scale tapestries and immersive sculptural environments that explore the lineage of West African masking traditions, moulding them with contemporary materials to instigate new modes of engaging with age-old rituals. Unpicking gender, culture and becoming through these works is as important as constructing fantasies. In her ongoing body of work Mawu Nyonu, beginning in 2019, works from which have shown at the Ghana Pavillion, Venice Biennale, 2021 and then the Nubuke Foundation, Accra, Reindorf introduces us to seven fictional characters that evade easily intelligible understanding; shapeshifting skins that possess deviant qualities. Each chapter of the series unfolds a new level in the mythology, as the artist seeks to further fold out and expand upon the worlds of these figures.
Reindorf sits down with Nick Hackworth to discuss the genesis of the project, and its eventual aims.
Nick Hackworth I want to start with your ongoing body of work, Mawu Nyonu. I saw the second iteration of the project in Venice, and then the third happened at the Nubuke Foundation in Accra. Is this an expansive narrative universe?
Na Chainkua Reindorf Yes, it is. This project started out as a way for me to explore masquerading culture, because I have a deep fascination with it. I’m particularly interested in the masquerade traditions coming out of Western and Central Africa. I based my master’s thesis on the masquerade as well. I kept hitting a wall during my initial research on women masqueraders because so many of the masquerade communities historically have excluded women. My thesis was based on one of the very few known masking societies run exclusively by women for women, called the Sande Society in parts of Western Africa.
At the time, I was interested in exploring ways that I could incorporate world-building into my practice and also make more personal work. I read a lot as a child, and a lot of the books that were most interesting to me were speculative fiction, folkloric tales and mythologies, which were great for developing my imagination. My parents run a children’s book and toy shop, so I had access to a wide range of literature, especially stories where whole new worlds were created, in series like Harry Potter. I’m just super interested in the idea of creating a whole world and the different characters that reside within it. I came up with the idea of creating a fictional, masquerade secret society of sorts and then building out these characters and making work that would literally put flesh to their bones. It’s an ambitious project and is something that I expect to be working on for at least ten years. And the paintings are designed to introduce the audience to the characters. The characters depicted in the paintings are going to be portrayed in other media as the project continues. I am in the process of designing and creating costumes based on each of these characters to bring them to life. Eventually, I plan to create immersive-type installations, like complete worlds that people can physically enter into and have multiple sensorial experiences; visually, aurally, and even olfactorily.
NH And then people learn about the essences of each character, their thoughts, and feelings, through your translation of them. So, it’s kind of like… When I was going to ask you the question initially, I kept thinking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which perhaps seems facetious…
NCR No, that’s a great reference. That’s one way that I try to help people to understand what I’m trying to do with this project. Comic book characters each have their own comics, their own narrative journeys, their own origin stories, and so on. So, it’s similar in that way. And it’s relevant because I’ve always been interested, art-wise, in exploring multiple media. In this manner, I am attempting to establish a finger in every pie type of art practice. I’m currently making paintings, and I think paintings or illustrations are great to use to explain something visually. And these first paintings reference the Asafo flags that come from the Fante people in Ghana, which are also very graphic. I’m thinking about the idea of how a flag represents a people. I thought it would be a great idea to meld those two ideas, painting and flags, as a way to introduce the characters and the ideas and concepts they each represent. Each group of paintings is meant to build upon each of their stories and build a bigger picture of the essence of each character.
NH It sounds like a really good way to tell that story because it’s a symbolic language that you’re creating, like tablets. And the expansive worlds in these projects, whether very ancient ones, or those of people like Tolkien, or a cinematic universe, or yours, there’s always some kind of battle intermingling, maybe, escapism, but also referencing the world. How do those two different things fall for you? Like the interaction between reality and fantasy, because it’s a place where they mix, right?
NCR That’s a really spot on observation and question because it is a combination of real-life experiences and my imagination that birthed these characters. I’m also exploring this imagined reality or this alternate reality where anything can happen. I’m particularly interested in the idea of a masquerade costume because it conceals the identity of whoever is wearing it. And so, the masquerade becomes, or is, this completely different entity. And historically, there’s a lot of literature around masquerades, and the psychology of being in a mask, being concealed, and having freedom to do things that you wouldn’t otherwise do because nobody knows who you are. And it’s really fascinating to me because masquerades, to an extent, are an extension of clothes, and clothes too, in a way, make you feel different, depending on what you wear and how you wear them. And so, I’m also looking into the history of spirituality and masquerading, about which lots has been written in relation to masquerade communities in Western and Central Africa, as well as this idea of being imbued or being possessed by a spirit or ancestor and becoming this other person within that process.
So, I’m looking at these different ways that masquerades actually create physical and spiritual transformation and translating that into my practice. I’m proposing that these characters have the ability to possess the everyday person and imbue them with each of their essences. I was thinking that if there’s this supernatural element where these masquerades transform people then I am more interested in them being more bad than good influences and intend them to perform actions that can be construed as morally ambiguous.
NH So where does that impulse come from?
NCR To some degree, it’s race and gender related, because there are these invisible impositions that you grow up with. For example, being taught not to dress a certain way as a woman because of how you will be perceived and treated in public. It kind of sucks that one would have to use a masquerade to be able to be more themselves or to buck societal norms, but it’s an interesting circumvention of the societal norm to use as a way to explore other ways of being free, and being not good, and being uninterested in what is expected of you, in that way. So, I try to push each of the characters to be more bad than good.
NH Are the seven characters the same characters throughout the paintings?
NCR Yes, they are.
NH Do you have any favourites?
NCR It depends on the time, but the yellow one, which is Tokpe and has two heads, is the most challenging for me. Behaviourally, she is capricious and switches from being pleasant to being awful; it’s good and bad, or chaotic and calm. And how do I portray that? And so, over the course of the paintings that I’ve made, I have always come up against Tokpe, which is fascinating to me, because it seems so simple, but to me it’s difficult to manifest in an illustrative way. Tokpe is like random chaos. She could be good; she could be bad. Is she going to be pleasant or is she going to be terribly awful? And how do you represent a duality in a way that is new and fresh every time you’re making a painting? So, it’s an interesting challenge, I think.
NH Where do you fall in terms of… Because obviously they’re all about human characters and behaviours. Do you personally… Obviously this doesn’t have to be communicated in the final work. Do you tend to think personally about people’s human characters and behaviours being fairly essential, or do you feel these things are very relative?
NCR I’d like to think they’re essential, but I do think that they’re relative, from my own personal experiences of reacting to different situations, and to some degree, each of these characters are parts of me that I’d like to explore, or I wish I could be, you know? But then at the same time, pulling it into the real world, a lot of friends and family and women I’ve spoken to have had very similar experiences. So, it’s still kind of universal, like the idea behind each character and what they do, or how people react to situations of powerlessness or, you know, doing things because they’re expected to versus not. Maybe this is coming from a country like Ghana, where there’s this sort of unsaid expectation that you’re going to get done with school and then get married and then have children and start a family and get a house. And if you do not fall within that set path, it’s like, okay, what’s going on with this person? It is definitely a generational thing, and younger generations are becoming more independent and outspoken about traditions that they don’t subscribe to, which is great. And I’m like, completely off the rails, you know, I have no interest in that kind of path. So, there’s also a way of, I guess, rejecting this predetermined life for women.
NH Did you grow up in Ghana until you went to university in the US?
NCR I grew up in Ghana.
NH I was going to ask about the difference between being in Ghana and the States with this, relative to masquerade and play, and obviously, you see different worlds. I mean, I don’t know exactly what your experience in the US was, but in terms of societal pressures and norms and familiar norms, how was it for you?
NCR To some degree, everybody knows everybody in Ghana, so you can’t really do things in a vacuum. At the same time, there’s a lot of bucking of that type of thinking that’s happening recently, which is really exciting, right? But when I was growing up, I noticed that when I came to the States, I felt freer because I didn’t know anybody, and nobody knew me. So, there’s this element, if you translate it into masquerading, of nobody knowing who you are, and the freedom that comes from that.
NH Like a one-person masquerade, I guess. I know a little bit about the Western European masquerade tradition, though it’s a little blurred in my memory. I associate it with the Christian festivals around turning the world upside down for a day or two, where you have an inversion of the usual societal structures. And I think in that European tradition, it feels like there’s something pre-Christian and pagan that survived and became synthetically absorbed within that kind of tradition. Do you know if there are any links between West African and European traditions around masquerade, or are they completely separate in terms of cultures?
NCR I don’t think there are necessarily any links. Maybe the underlying concept a little, but they come, I think, from different sources. But it’s also really varied depending on what community you’re looking at across the continent. So, I try to avoid generalizing because Ghana specifically does have a masquerading history, but it’s not based in spirituality. In the early 1900s, I believe, during colonial times, when the British and Dutch traders would be celebrating during Christmas, and would get drunk out in the streets, they would exclude the locals, like the Ghanaians, from coming, from celebrating in the same bars as them, because everything was separated. And so, the locals started dressing up as caricatures of the Dutch and British traders to make fun of them. But then it has become this whole event, which is well known in the region, where it’s obviously now more contemporary, right? So, you start seeing Nike and Adidas and all these different weird materials like tinsel and pink-skinned, imported baby dolls that are going to end up as part of the costumes. And there’s a competition at the beginning of each year and all these different masquerade families come and compete against each other in front of a crowd. But that’s kind of how that started. But there are other ones. For example, Nigeria has a very large and varied masquerading community and a lot of them are super secretive. They don’t like pictures taken of them because it’s a serious spiritual event. These masquerade entities are understood to be imbued with the spirit of the ancestors.
NH That’s a completely different thing, then. And you also talked about a female masquerade society. Is that in Ghana?
NCR No, not in Ghana. In parts of Liberia and Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast I believe.
NH One that’s still going or historical?
NCR I believe it’s historical, but it’s still going. It’s very much spiritual and it’s within this particular group called the Sande society. And they’re also quite secretive in a way, and also exclude men from their activities. What is interesting about that particular group is that there’s actually a men’s version in the same community. A lot of them have to do with rites of passage where a boy transitions into becoming a man or a girl transitioning to become a woman. But that’s the one that is most written about because it’s so rare. And for the men’s masquerade societies, even some of them women are not allowed to watch them. Sometimes women can maybe play the instruments or sing along, but then with some of them there are no women allowed at all. And there’s this book I read that posits that according to oral tradition and oral history, masquerading in the very beginning in Central and Western Africa, was originally started by women. And the men were terrified of them and managed to take over and then kicked them out. But you know, there’s no physical proof of this, other than stories passed down over generations, but I think it’s an interesting position.
NH And the title of the universe translates as “God is a woman”, right?
NCR Yes. “God Woman” or “God is a woman”. So, what is the universe of a female God? I got that title because I was looking historically at powerful female figures in African oral history and spiritual history as well. I was looking at Vodun, a cosmology that exists in parts of West Africa, like in Ghana, in Togo, in Benin specifically, and in Nigeria, actually. There are multiple versions of the origin of Vodun cosmology and in some of the oral legends, God is a woman, and she births seven children. God is Mawu. So, I got the title from that. And I just thought it was interesting that in one of the stories, God is a woman, and in another of the stories, there’s a female and a male god that have children. So, I just decided to choose this version of the story as inspiration to suit my project. At the same time, I was also trying to pull things from history that exist, which adds a degree of credibility and makes this entire project more believable, because the idea is that this could potentially exist in the real world, right? So, I was pulling ideas from events that actually took place and then also incorporating my own imagination to furnish the rest of it.
NH So, the characters are female embodiments, so would men be excluded from the… How would men be integrated? Would they be audience members or…?
NCR I never really thought about the male gaze, because I’m not thinking about men’s eyes, or the perspective of men. I’m thinking about what I know, which is myself. And so, it was sort of for women, by women, where it’s exploring to some degree experiences that are solely experienced by women. But, you know, it’s more so about situations where not being part of the norm means you’re excluded. I’m more inclined to make work about experiences that I’m familiar with, which is being a woman. So that’s the position I came from when I was making the work.
NH You’ve told me a little about the direction in which the work’s going. It sounds like it’s such a rich vision. Do you have something, which could be quite far in the future, that you’re already dreaming of in terms of an immersive environment?
NCR I think at the end of the day, the work that I’m trying to make, or the work I’m interested in making is experiential. Bringing it into the real world, where you can be in the space and feel things and touch things and smell things and hear things, right? And being encompassed in this world and in awe of whatever is around you. Because I think those are experiences within art that I have never forgotten. I feel like they’re very powerful, especially to me. So, I think this is what I try to emulate in the work, or at least I hope to when I get the chance. But I really do want to, and I’m excited to get into the sort of actual physical aspect of world building where an individual is entering into a completely new world and experiencing something completely different from day-to-day life, but also in a way that speaks to what each character is about.
When I was developing these worlds, and as I continue to develop them, I really wanted, and want to, make them as open-ended as possible because there are so many directions that this could go in, and it’s exciting to keep building each character out through the work that I’m making. Eventually, I want to create an experience where people can actually enter into their worlds, into the world of each character.
NH What do you think of immersive theatre experiences, and the borderlines between, I mean, these are all pretty arbitrary borders, but between installation art, narrative, and so on?
NCR One of the very first wild experiences I had with large-scale installation was Nick Cave’s work at Mass MoCA, in Massachusetts, which involved lots of different senses. And his work just filled the entire hall in this crazy installation. But then I’ve also been thinking about virtual immersive experiences. And it’s funny because what I’m interested in, masquerade and traditional histories, are from the past. So, there are people who know about them, and there are particular aesthetics that go with them. And I’m backing that in a way because I’m kind of reinterpreting it using a more contemporary version. So, it’ll be interesting to involve the virtual because that could really be really trippy.
NH One last final question. Do you think you’ll bring text or spoken language into it at some point? Do you write yourself, fictionally or semi-fictionally?
NCR I think I prefer to make things and have faith they have an effect the way that I intend them to in the same way that words can have an effect. Speaking of language, I’m interested in creating a visual language. I’m currently developing these little signs, like an iconography of sorts to represent the characters. The eye is something that shows up in all the paintings because I want that to be associated with this project so that over time people will be able to identify the work as mine without necessarily needing a signature. So, creating a language that people can identify and understand visually is what I’m hoping to achieve.
NH Well, thank you very much. That was really interesting, and it sounds like you have a lot of work to do in the next 20 years.
NCR I do. It’s exciting, but terrifying.