Black Lives Matter: Takyiwa Danso
Photo Series – Takyiwa Danso
Takyiwa Danso, 32, is a British-Ghanaian collage artist from London, and based in Brighton. Alongside her profession in global development, Takyiwa is a collage artist and facilitator, using the creative practice to reflect on her experiences of race and social justice issues through her work “Power in Pieces”.
Motivated by challenging unjust systems, her collages raise questions about social issues often side-lined in the mainstream. For Takyiwa, the creative process of deconstructing and rebuilding images helps her process and convey the complexities of being a person of colour in the UK today. Her work, both reflective and creative embraces the act of re-creation as healing and restorative. Here are some words from Takyiwa to accompany her submissions:
Brighton BLM march (June, 2022)
This is me and my partner at the Brighton BLM march. We both felt so strongly about joining the march, standing up for justice and being part of the community. Yet, being in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a strange time to be around so many people. There was a mix of overwhelming emotions for me – anger, fear, and pride. But most of all, comfort in being in a relatively new (and mostly white) city and seeing that people showed up against racism.
“the racial reckoning” (May, 2025)
Inspired by my memories of that BLM march, I created this collage “the racial reckoning” to convey that moment in May 2020 when the world seemed to wake up to racism. From the devastating murder of George Floyd, people found their power and rose to action. In Brighton, I remember how people from the black, brown and ally white communities came together for justice, their anger and cry for change pushing the movement forward. As black people, individually and as a community, our experiences to racism were ‘exposed’ and we were left so vulnerable, our wounds open for all to see.
Whilst I do believe some things changed for the better (more appreciation and engagement with black and brown safe spaces, networks, groups, businesses etc. in Brighton) – I’m also critical of how much change there has been. Whether the drive for justice was performative, a trend of the time, and actually institutions (and people) have become lazy in the continual fight against racism and oppression.
Takyiwa Danso
Collage artist and Facilitator
Instagram: powerinpieces
