“Echoes from the coast”: The poetics of decrepit materials

Cyril Senyo Kpodo (2025)

This study explores the intersection of African sculpture and semiotics, focusing on mask forms created from discarded wood sourced from the shores of Winneba and scavenged metals from mechanic shops and scrap depots. The study situates itself within junk art, a movement that reimagines discarded materials as vehicles for artistic and cultural expression. Employing an arts-based, studio-driven research methodology, the artist-researcher repurposes and documents a process beginning with intuitive selection of weathered wood, often from decommissioned canoes, and integration of found metal objects to create four evocative masks. The results provide the creative procedure as well as visual and symbolic analyses of the four works, namely Resurrection, Awula Bibio (Young woman), Korle-Bu and Shine-Eye, interpreting their forms, materials, and inscriptions as commentaries on life cycles, cultural identity, and resilience. The study affirms art’s profound dual role: as a vivid mirror that reflects the core values of society, and as a dynamic catalyst that ignites new transformative ways of thinking.