MANGO

MANGO — an acronym for Moving Across Nations for Greater Opportunity — is a film and two-channel video installation exploring migration, belonging and displacement through the relationship between human movement, ancestral memory and the objects that travel with us. The project departs from the Ewe traditional understanding of Etsifófó, a wandering soul seeking a home, using rituals, libation and Indigenous knowledge as a point of departure for thinking about the migrant experience. At the centre of the work is the “Ghana Must Go” bag, an object deeply associated with migration and displacement in West Africa, particularly following the expulsion of Ghanaians from Nigeria in 1983.

The project investigates the tension between belonging and intrusion, and between the movement of the body and the movement of memory across generations and borders. Through film, ritual and the material presence of the Ghana Must Go bag, MANGO brings human and non-human stories into relation. The process combines observational and experimental filmmaking with Indigenous ritual practices. The film reimagines these traditions through contemporary audiovisual forms, creating what the project describes as a form of digital incantation and an alternative relationship between the work, its subjects and the viewer.