Kofi Setordji

Kofi Setordji's Genocide, made between 1998 and 2000 in response to the Rwandan genocide, filled a room at the 2000 Dakar Biennale with about 300 pieces of wood, metal and found objects, including a full war-crimes tribunal with a judge, defence and prosecution.

Training

He was born in Accra in 1957 and attended Methodist Secondary School before training as a commercial artist. He learned under the cartoonist Ghanatta Yaw Boakye and, from 1984 to 1987, under the artist and dramatist Saka Acquaye. He began carving sandstone in 1985.

Work and influence

His practice covers sculpture, painting, textile and graphic design, and his exhibitions have taken him across Europe as well as to South Africa and the US. His five-metre sculpture Entre Amies stands outside the National Theatre in Accra. He co-founded the Nubuke Foundation art space, which held a retrospective of his work in 2012, and runs Arthaus, a residency for young artists. He was Sculptor of the Year in 1990 and received a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio fellowship in 2018.