TANOA SASRAKU

A Tower to Say Goodbye


Born in 1995, Tanoa Sasraku examines the intersections of her identity as a bi-racial, gay woman raised in Plymouth (UK). Her practice shifts between filmmaking, drawing and flag-making, juxtaposing and performing British, Black, Ghanaian and queer cultural histories in her navigation of self. Sasraku’s appliquéd, newsprint flags are inspired by the visual and material structure of the Fante Asafo war flags of coastal Ghana, which the artist’s paternal ancestors fabricated in resistance to British colonial rule. Her own flags map personal stories of a life lived in modern Britain, as classroom materials are fused together to create cryptic, ceremonial objects. In her practice as a filmmaker, Sasraku engages in queer, black retellings of traditional British folklore, as well as producing more diaristic journeys through her past, via the medium of analogue film. The presence of her figure, set against the sublime, British landscape throws into question ideas of “deep” England and what it means to claim ownership over the rural. Tanoa Sasraku is based in London, England. She graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths College in 2018 and will be commencing her studies at the Royal Academy Schools in 2021. She was the recipient of the Arts Foundation Futures Award for Visual Arts in 2021.

www.tanoasasraku.com