Hungry Ghosts is the title of a new collaboration between photographer Anke Loots and The Slum Studio. Anke currently lives and works in Cape Town, where she has become known for her meditative images which capture the complex dynamics of the natural world. Her approach to photography seeks to find balance and harmony and create order by filtering through the chaos and obstacles of everyday life. The results can be seen as reflections on the impermanence of human existence, often in intimate and surrealist ways.
The Slum Studio is an Accra-based social and architectural research project founded by multidisciplinary artist Sel Kofiga. The studio makes hand-painted wearable art from used fabrics while using multifaceted ways to explore the politics of clothing production and consumption. Often this involves efforts to document and investigate the influx of second-hand textiles in Sel’s home country, Ghana. Their stories come together in Hungry Ghosts, a poetic portrait of place, body, and memory, in which they aimed to capture the unknown and what Sel describes as a utopia. Here, they talk to each other about what drew them into each other’s work and, most importantly, what ‘hungry ghosts’ means to them.
By Anke Loots and The Slum Studio
Photo: Hungry Ghosts, by Anke Loots/The Slum Studio.
SEL KOFIGA: Why did you choose to photograph The Slum Studio (TSS)?
ANKE LOOTS: I love the internet for this exact reason, you are so easily able to connect with different people across the globe in such an instant way… When I feel really drawn to an artist, designer, brand or individual I will always reach out and see if there’s a spark there. Now, TSS is a multidisciplinary studio, and currently you are working with recycled fabric. How do you decide which medium will best communicate your vision?
SEL: For me, because I like to go all out, my performance practice comes first. And looking at it from ‘everything we come into contact with has life in it’ gives me a reason to acknowledge that there is something happening that I can also listen to or do something with, so it becomes a practice of finding meaning and an exploration into the unknown. What I find along the way determines what I do.
You also have a very interesting relationship with the things, subjects, and places you photograph. It’s so surreal, poetic and almost spiritual. How does it happen?
ANKE: It comes from the way I try to live my day-to-day life — in a mindful presence, with my body as my safest environment, my breath as my anchor, and my heart as my guide. My mind is my muscle to exercise and train along with my body. I try to capture what I see when I am able to relate to the world in this way.
SEL: Very interesting. So what do ’hungry ghosts’ mean to you?
ANKE: An insatiable yearning to keep feeding a void with something that doesn’t serve you any longer and not break the cycle. The opposite state of what I mentioned before is also a state I find myself in from time to time. Life fluctuates in that way, right?
SEL: Right! If I am not mistaken, in some Southeast Asian mythology, I read somewhere that hungry ghosts are these beings who have an insatiable desire, hunger, or thirst for more, and it is interesting that there is a proverb in the Asante Twi language that also describes this. So connecting these and creating work that embodies our own relationship with and attachment to wants and desires, says a lot about utopia.
Photo: Hungry Ghosts, by Anke Loots/The Slum Studio.
SEL: Do you think photography shapes the way we see climate change, especially as artists based in parts of the world who see the direct effect of it in our spaces?
ANKE: Yes, the incredible thing is that anybody has the tool of photography at their fingertips, and we’re all, in real-time, capturing & documenting how the world is affected by our unsustainable way of living with our planet.
You also collaborate with lots of different artists and photographers around the world. What is important to you when working with people you have never met before?
SEL: I think it is about the energy and the relationship that person has with their work, their space, and their interests. For this project, I was so drawn to your relationship with shadow, light, and landscape. There is this reassuring presence your work gives that gives so much hope. I think the most important thing in all my collaborations is community, collectivity, and possibility.
ANKE: Does climate change affect your daily practice? For instance, in South Africa, we have load shedding, which has a big impact on the way we have to adapt our practices to keep creating.
SEL: Oh, it does. Ghana has had load shedding for decades, I think it is largely because, after fifty or so years after its construction, we still depend on one dam. Sometimes, when it happens, you may not be able to do any work for days. I think it is evident that the direct impact of climate change is just an offspring of how much we have had to deal with colonialism. I am not an expert on the subject, but it is a characteristic occurrence in the modern world that makes it important that we all understand what climate change is and how much damage it is making to the environment. I think our livelihoods depend on the industrial revolution, transport, food, electricity, fashion, etc.—but at the same time, looking at ways in which our relationship with these things can influence a healthy response to the land, water bodies, air, and environment can be a good place to reflect.
Photo: Hungry Ghosts, by Anke Loots/The Slum Studio.
ANKE: Your work is exhibited in institutionalized museums in Europe but also, in contrast, on the streets of Accra. How do spaces leave more of an impression on people or influence how they think about climate change?
SEL: I have this thing where I think of everyone as the audience, which makes it easier for me to navigate between both public spaces and institutions. And I think that because TSS builds its interest in and around the everyday aesthetic and the public’s engagement with second-hand clothing, I become so preoccupied with how to present the work in a form and shape that anybody can see themselves in.
ANKE: Earlier this year, you mentioned TSS is working on a short film, could you tell us about any other project you have planned for 2023?
SEL: I have always been intrigued by motion pictures and whatever form they take, so the new body of work is built around how language is used as a resistance tool. So I am working on a series of short films that sort of respond to how vernacular aesthetics are used in second-hand clothing markets in Accra. It is a new project titled kumfo domfo, which translates to saviour, destroyer. It is an ongoing research project that will take different forms like film, illustrations, sound, and video installations. I look forward to sharing it with the public very soon.
SEL: Where do you see this project going in the next few months or years?
ANKE: I would love to extend this project in the future by visiting where you stay, to document your practice and translate your work, through my eyes, in the context of Ghana.
SEL: Likewise, I look forward to exploring with you.
All images courtesy of Anke Loots and The Slum Studio.
About the authorS
Anke Loots is a photographer living and working Cape Town. Her approach to photography seeks to find balance and harmony and create order by filtering through the chaos and obstacles of everyday life. The Slum Studio is an Accra-based social and architectural research project founded by multidisciplinary artist Sel Kofiga. The studio makes hand-painted wearable art from used fabrics while using multifaceted ways to explore the politics of clothing production and consumption.
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