Management Team
Joseph Awuah-Darko, Chairman
Joseph Awuah-Darko (b. 1996 in Middlesex London) is the founder and chairman of the Noldor Artist Residency, an annual 4-week program inviting an emerging African artist with limited access to resources to expand on his/her practice in a dedicated studio space and retreat in Accra, Ghana. He received an undergraduate degree from Ashesi University and remains the youngest major donor in his alma-mater’s history.
An African contemporary art connoisseur, collector and thought leader, he has continuously looked to his Ghanaian upbringing and extensive travels to cultivate the ties between an established European art scene and Africa’s emerging cultural industries. A Forbes 30 Under 30 Alumnus, with experience at African modern and contemporary art gallery Sulger-Buel in London, and additionally having studied at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Awuah-Darko has actively nurtured his understanding of global art market dynamics, thereby seeking to apply and adapt them to his African roots.
Johanes Francis Kuwornu, Director
Gilbert Obeng Owusu, Head of Operations
Samantha Amarhfio, Head of Finance
Josiah Kwasi Oklu-Darku, Head of Communications
Sally Polley, Head Curator
Harry Amarhfio, Artist Liaison
Michael Dakwa, Documentarian
Foresight Amarquaye, Executive Assistant
Joyce Yeboah, Head Janitor
Shadrach Arthur, Assistant Janitor/ Artists Assistant
Kwaku Boakye, Night Security
ABOUT THE ADVISORY PATRONAGE
The final addition to Noldor’s artistic community, the Advisory Patronage program is a continuous initiative aiming to anchor the residency within Ghana’s, and Africa’s, broader cultural ecosystem. Nominated each year to this lifelong position by the Founder and existing board members, Advisory Patrons assume a remote role as advisors and guides in the running and development of the residency. Advocating for gender parity, half of the board members are of African descent. Thought-leaders involved in Ghana’s broader cultural context – curators; heads of institutions; architects; designers – they reflect and represent Noldor, ensuring its lasting relevance in the country and abroad.
Advisory Patrons
Modupeola Fadugba
Modupeola Fadugba (born 1985 in Lomé, Togo) is a multimedia artist working in painting, drawing, and socially-engaged installation. With a background in engineering, education and economics, she comfortably inhabits the nexus of many disciplines. Her works explore cultural identity, social justice, game theory, and the art world within the socio-political landscape of Nigeria and our greater global economy. The People’s Algorithm — a game installation that fosters debate about how to improve Nigeria’s education system — was awarded El Anatsui’s Outstanding Production Prize and a 2016 Dakar Biennale Grand Prize from Senegal’s Minister of Communication. Her most recent exhibition, Dream from the Deep End, depicts swimmers exploring collaborative ways of being in the water together, set against the bleak backdrop of America’s racialized — and oftentimes tragic — swimming history. The work was exhibited at Gallery 1957 in Accra, Ghana as part of a multimedia exhibition that reflects the sheer scope of their individual stories and collective experiences as swimmers. Together with ArtDocs, she documented the process of creating these works. The documentary film was screened at the Brooklyn Museum, New York in 2019, and most recently at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York in September 2019.
Fadugba holds a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware, a Masters in Economics from the University of Delaware, and a Masters in Education from Harvard University. She lives and works in between Abuja, Nigeria and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is currently a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow 2020. She will be in San Francisco in the Fall of 2020 for the Headlands Residency.
Rita Mawuena Benissan
Rita Mawuena Benissan [b. 1995], a Ghanaian-American interdisciplinary artist, reimagines the royal umbrella. The umbrella is a well-known protective object that she has reinterpreted as a symbol of Ghanaian identity. She is creating the embodiment of the beauty and power of individuals and communities through fabrication and design. Born in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire in 1995 to Ghanaian parents, she immigrated to the United States as a baby. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Apparel and Textile Design from Michigan State University in 2017. She graduated in 2021 from University of Wisconsin- Madison with a Master of Fine Arts in photography and an African Studies Program Certificate.
She has had exhibitions at both universities, Arts + Literature Laboratory in Wisconsin [2021], the Foundation Contemporary of Art, Afrochella Festival [2021] and Gallery 1957 (2022) in Accra, Ghana. She has shown at the 2022 Dak’Art – Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain at the IFAN African Art Museum, in Dakar, Senegal, and in the group show “EFIE: Museum as Home” in Dortmund, Germany. Through her foundation Si Hene, which focuses on preserving Ghana’s chieftaincy and traditional culture, she helped to launch the reopening of the National Museum of Ghana in June 2022. She held the position of Chief Curator at the Institute Museum of Ghana [Noldor Artist Residency] for 2 years till November 2022. She is currently now sits on Noldor’s advisory board and has now transitioned full-time as a practicing artist.