Hi, I´m Joshua Dekia.

I’m a Kassena Artist from the Republic of Ghana. I obtained my bachelor’s degree in painting and sculpture in the year 2018 at the Kwame Nkrumah University Of Science and Technology – Ghana. And I also obtained my Masters Fine Art at Kunstakademiet i Trondheim (kit) Norway.

+AWARDS:

1. Bildende Kunstneres Hjelpefond (BKH 2022) — Winner

2. Queen Sonja Print Award (QSPA Inspirational Award 2022) — Nominee

Joshua has committed his artistic practice for the last 10 years primarily to the medium of photographic image transfer on hand made paper-mâché. On his arrival into Trondheim, Joshua began to make his paper-mâché from Addressaviese newspapers (collected during his night job delivering newspapers), which he then combines with his unique grafic print techniques, revisiting past methods and production processes used by Sirigu women’s wall art, which form a traditional part of Sirigu culture in Ghana, that have been passed down for generations.

His cross-disciplinary and cross- cultural approach informs a new form of 2 and 3 dimensional photographic print techniques, which take the forms of a costume moulded on the body or imprinted on the façade of an architectural structure or as a 2 dimensional print work. What makes Joshua’s practice so unique is his personal artistic techniques of printing and courageous approach, notably for bringing the stories of daily, local Addressaviese newspapers of Trondheim into his art, merging these stories with material cultural processes of Ghanaian art to evoke messages of sustainability, cross cultural diversity and inclusivity.

Joshua’s work is about holding conversations, between the past and present, diverse material cultural practices of appropriation, circular aesthetics vs linear aesthetics in challenging the role of the artist today and about bridging collaborations between the local Trondheim art community and global art community. These conversations that originate in his paper mâché methods of making and symbolic imagery applied through his personalized printing processes have found their way onto the local and international art stages including: Joshua making graphic printed and hand stitched paper- mâché costumes for art band Chicks on Speed to perform in at Global Angst Munich, Spiel Art festival, October 2021 and his latest short film documentary about his artistic processes in printing and paper mâché, which will be screened at ASVOFF 13 Film festival, 3537, Paris Dec 1-3 2021.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO COLLABORATE?

I would like to hear from you and discuss suitable
projects of any scale and scope –
– from big campaigns to commercial art or
just beautiful creative content, I’m here.