1.3. – 24.5.2026

Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah

RESIDUAL SKY

For the first comprehensive institutional solo exhibition of the RESIDUAL SKY group of works, the artist Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah (b.1990, living and working in Zurich) shows a cycle of 13 photographic objects. These consist of large-format, hand-developed, analogue colour photographs on glossy paper, which either hang or stand on white-washed wooden backgrounds in the skylight gallery, attached with magnets. The photographs are based on historical negatives from the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection in Bristol, depicting images from Ghana, the former British colony known as the “Gold Coast”, which is also where Adu-Sanyah’s father was born.

The artist was first alerted to this trove of image material from the British Crown Colonies and Territories in West Africa (1878–1957) in 2024 when she was invited to the Bristol Photo Festival. During her subsequent research she began to take a particular interest in the intermediate spaces in the pictures reproducing the violent hierarchies of the British colonial context, devoid of people. She selected the upper third parts of the pictures—the sky and tree tops—cut and turned them, then bodily adopting them through manual enlargement and development.

In the sense of “residual” as “an internal aftereffect of experience or activity that influences later behavior” (Merriam-Webster), the artist pursues the visible and invisible traces and “residues”—chemical, historical,  emotional—that the experience of encountering these photographs have left behind over time. What emerges are images of transition and transformation. The cut-outs of sky and tree tops are no longer part of the landscape (horizontal), but instead become corporeal entities, mirrors, windows (vertical). The intense colourfulness of the photographs evokes a bodily nature—for instance blood, or the red shades left when staring at the sun with ones eyes closed. Or for that matter, the colours over the course of the day. The trees and clouds on the transparent negative film appear like apparitions that confront the here and now. Adu-Sanyah’s works do not insist on a conclusive form; instead they are located in a constant transformational flux, in a continuous meeting between present and absent bodies (including those of the viewers) and different temporalities. The artist works again and again with the same negative, which then adopts varied constellations in new forms of images. One of these insisting motifs reappears in the exhibition: the injured foot of her deceased father—a wound, a patch of colour and a bodily fragment in one.

As opposed to standardised, technically normed production methods in colour photography, Adu-Sanyah works using process-based hand-development techniques, tried and tested in her specially devised darkroom. Her approach is guided by an operational ethic: instead of precisely measurable parameters and serial procedures, the reproductions are produced under conditions that deliberately allow the material, chemistry and environment to play an active design role. The paper is rolled out by hand in the dark; slight discrepancies are consciously kept as part of the picture. Colours and forms are created by filters, improvised tools and through the intrusion of daylight through spatial cracks and openings—not randomly, but as integral factors of an open yet controlled system. Adu-Sanyah shifts colour photography into another realm—beyond mechanical reproduction into a sphere of material and temporal singularity.

Moreover, the time taken to develop the images is determined by the effort and the energy the artist invests in treating the paper and the use of the chemical developer bath, which in turn impacts the definition and the contrast. In this, the artist’s interest lies in a state of “exhaustion”—the constant accentuation of a memory, an emotion or an emulsion to their outer limits, or indeed beyond. And exhaustion in this case also equates with catharsis. What becomes apparent is that the intensity of the process, and indeed the particular beauty of the images that emerge, arises from the persistent search for conditions that allow one to continue living, of life survival. Adu-Sanyah ceaselessly challenges supposed historical and social convictions and fixations in search of an open (visual) scope in which new relationships become possible.

Curated by Annette Amberg.

Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah (*1990, lives and works in Zurich) studied at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar in Saarbrücken. Her most recent solo exhibitions include: at the Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, the Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, and no flowers, Centre Culturel Suisse de Paris (all 2026); Hypoxia, Jan Kaps, Cologne (2025); Corner Dry Lungs, Zollamt MMK, Frankfurt am Main, and The House Is A Body, Georgian House Museum and Bristol Photo Festival, Bristol (both 2024); Behold The Ocean, Centre Photographie Genève, Geneva, and May I Dream?, Photoforum Pasquart, Biel (both 2022). Her works have been shown in numerous group exhibitions, including: Alexander Tutsek Foundation (2025); Foam Museum, Amsterdam (2024); Centre de la Photographie, Geneva, and Helmhaus, Zurich (both 2024); Gia Lam Train Factory, Hanoi, Lothringer 13 Halle, Munich, and Kunsthalle Trier, Trier (both 2023). Her works have won various awards, including: the Borlem Preis and Swiss Art Award (2024); with a work grant from the Canton of Zurich and an art scholarship from the City of Zurich (2023); the Louis Roederer Photography Prize for Sustainability (2022); the Prix d’Art Robert Schuman (2021); the Prix Photoforum (2020).  

(Events)

Saturday, February 28, 2026, 06.00 PM

Opening: Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi, Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, Nolan Lucidi, Das Jahr der Sammlung (The Year of the Collection): Prologue

6:00 pm – Opening
6:30 pm – Speech by director Annette Amberg and president of the Glarner Kunstverein Kaspar Marti, accompanied by a children's tour with Mara Danz (art education)
Followed by soup, drinks, and music by Oblique

Thursday, March 12, 2026, 01.00 PM

Art & Coffee

30-minute exhibition tour with Annette Amberg and Mara Danz followed by coffee and cake.

The tour is included in the admission price and is held in German.

Thursday, March 12, 2026, 07.00 PM

An Evening of Films

Presentation of the video works A So-Called Archive (2020) by Onyeka Igwe and The Letter (2019) / Fleshbacks (2021) by Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, who critically engage with the power of collections and of the archive in shaping collective memories. The film night is included in the admission price. Introduction by Annette Amberg in German. Duration of the films in total 50 min.

A So-Called Archive (2020) by Onyeka Igwe
Onyeka Igwe demonstrates a forensic interest in the images of Britain’s colonial past and its institutions, as well as the visible traces they have left in present-day Britain. Footage of two archival buildings is woven into a double portrait: the building filmed in Lagos once housed the Nigerian Film Unit, which was part of the so-called Colonial Film Unit (1932–1955) and was among the very first overseas outposts of British visual propaganda. The second building is the former Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol, where photographs, films, and object collections from across the former British Empire were once kept. The film employs the genres of radio play, corporate video tours, and “detective noir” to offer a compelling and critical approach to the history of these two colonial archival buildings and the ongoing violent entanglements between Britain and its former colonies.

English version with German subtitles.

The Letter (2019) / Fleshbacks (2021) by Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński
The Letter (2019) moves between video, performance, sound, and text. The artist examines the power of the archive in shaping collective memories. It takes as a starting point the haunting reminiscence of a group of West Africans in 19th century Vienna. By following the traces left, an analysis of archival structures and the objects housed within them is opened up, pointing to an understanding of the past as not past but as a gateway for interrogations of Diasporan temporalities. The Letter and the second video, Fleshbacks, intertwine to the extent that the figures are not always the same in both videos but feature the same props, such as the magnifying glass and the museum-conservator’s tools, indicating that the incidents commentate each other. The protagonists in Fleshbacks interact with each other but also with the people on the archival photographs, moving through an urban setting – they climb, run, scale ladders – as if they were following a calling. This creates a visual and auditive fusion of different places, states and memories. In this zone across time and space the lines between Vienna and Accra, between the then and the now, as well as the here and there, become blurry and ultimately obsolete.


Onyeka Igwe
 is an artist, filmmaker, programmer, and researcher currently based in London. In her non-fiction video work, Igwe employs dance, voice, archive, and text to uncover a range of narratives. Her practice examines the physical body and geographic space as sites of cultural and political significance. Selected solo exhibitions include: our generous mother, Art Now, Tate Britain, London, 2025; The Miracle on George Green, Arcadia Missa, London; history is a living weapon in yr hand, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham (both 2024); A Repertoire of Protest (No Dance, No Palaver), MoMA PS1, New York, 2023. Selected group exhibitions include: Where we meet land: environment and ecology in artists’ moving image, Fruitmarket (upcoming); The Film London Jarman Award 2025 Exhibition, Whitechapel Gallery; The Great Camouflage, Rockbund Art Museum; Convergence, The David Collins Foundation; Total Climate Part 3, Nicoletti Contemporary (2025); Conversations, Walker Art Gallery; Liberation in Four Movements, Art Museum University of Toronto; Nigeria Imaginary, Nigeria Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia; Ritual in Transfigured Time, Netwerk Aalst; Lagos Biennial, Tafawa Balewa Square (all 2024).

Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński is a Vienna based writer, artist, and researcher whose works manifest themselves through a variety of media. Rooted in Black feminist theory, she has developed a research-based and process-oriented investigative practice that deals with the condition of Black life in the African diaspora. Doing so, she interlaces varying spaces and temporalities, thereby resisting a clean-cut separation between documentary and speculation. Selected solo exhibitions include Aerolectics, Kunst Meran, Merano, 2025; Respire (Liverpool), Phileas – The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art, Vienna, 2024; Irè (Blessings), Wonnerth Dejaco, Vienna, Austria, 2024; O.T., K. T. C. I., Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig / f/stop Festival, Leipzig, 2024; You are awaited but never as equals, Coalmine, 2023. And selected group exhibitions include: Bounding Histories. Whispering Tales, Art Encounters Biennial, Timișoara, 2025; Freeing the Voices, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, 2025; Tactical Specters, La Ferme du Buisson, Noisiel (Paris region), 2025; Carried Over, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York, 2025; Take a Breath, Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin, 2024; Group exhibition (with Raven Chacon & Oscar Tuazon), Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, 2024; Respire (Liverpool), Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, United Kingdom, 2023; Irè / Blessings presentation, ART X Lagos, Lagos, 2023.

Thursday, April 9, 2026, 01.00 PM

Art & Coffee

30-minute guided exhibition tour with coffee and cake with Annette Amberg. 

The tour is included in the admission price and is held in German.

Wednesday, May 6, 2026, 03.00 PM

Afternoon for kids: Designing bags with Mara Danz

In the current exhibitions, we explore materials, colors, and shapes that tell stories about memory, identity, and belonging. Using fabrics, threads, ribbons, buttons, and found materials, you will capture your impressions on a fabric bag — by knotting, weaving, and gluing.

For children aged 6 and teenagers. Free admission.

Information and advance registration by May 3 at info@kunsthausglarus.ch

 

Thursday, May 7, 2026, 01.00 PM

Art & Coffee

30-minute guided exhibition tour with coffee and cake.

The tour is included in the admission price and is held in German.

Sunday, May 10, 2026, 11.30 AM

Sunday at Kunsthaus Glarus: 11:30 am Exhibition tour, 12:30 pm lunch, 14:00 pm performance, reading, talk

Sunday at Kunsthaus Glarus 

Our new event series "Sunday at Kunsthaus Glarus" invites you to join for one event or spend the whole day at the Kunsthaus.

11:30 am

with Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, Annette Amberg, Claire Hoffmann, curator at centre culturel Suisse de Paris (CCS), and Tadeo Kohan, interim curator at CCS and independent curator

The exhibition tour is held in German. 
The programme is included in the entrance admission. 

12:30 pm

Shared lunch 

Cost for lunch: CHF 10.– excluding Kunsthaus admission.

Advance registration by May 8 at info@kunsthausglarus.ch

14:00 pm

Reading by Quinn Latimer – Author Quinn Latimer reads selected texts.
Performance by Yann Slattery – Yann Slattery, performer, presents a performance developed specifically for Nolan Lucidi's installation.
Discussion with Nolan Lucidi, artist

Quinn Latimer is a California-born writer and editor whose work frequently engages with feminist economies of writing, reading, and moving image production. Her books include Like a Woman: Essays, Readings, Poems (Sternberg Press, 2017), Sarah Lucas: Describe This Distance (Mousse Publishing, 2013), Film as a Form of Writing: Quinn Latimer Talks to Akram Zaatari (WIELS/Motto Books, 2013), and Rumored Animals (Dream Horse Press, 2012). Her texts and readings have been presented widely, including at REDCAT, Los Angeles; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Radio Athènes, Athens; the Poetry Project, New York; the Venice Architecture Biennale; and Sharjah Biennale 13. She is editor of numerous publications and was chief editor of publications for documenta 14. She has taught at institutions including Haute École d'Arts Appliqués HEAD in Geneva, Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK, Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art in Saas-Fee and Berlin, and The Banff Centre in Canada. Since 2020, she has been a lecturer in the master's program of the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK FHNW in Basel.

Yann Slattery (lives and works in Basel) is a dancer, performer, choreographer, stripper, community organizer, and visual artist. With a bachelor's degree in fashion design and a master's degree in Art Gender Nature (HGK), their work deliberately moves between disciplines. In 2022–23, they co-curated the queer film series *Starsign Screenings* at Amore Basel together with Renée Steffen and Peter Wili; since 2025, Yann has been organizing the queer-trans strip club Kiss My Ass in Zurich with other queer strippers and sex workers. Together with Yevheniya Kravets, Yann Slattery forms the performance duo Husbands. Their works PLAYBOIS (2023) and SERVING TOY BOI / BOI TOY SERVING (2025) combine gaming worlds and performance and use performance as a tool for un//masking. They have shown their work in Sweden (Norberg Festival), Birmingham (Fierce Festival), Zurich (Rote Fabrik, Zentralwäscherei), Basel (Humbug), and Vienna (Performative Screenings—School). Yann's choreographic works include the performance piece Tanga Tragedy (2022, Transboahalle Basel, Amore Basel)—a theatrical exploration of that simultaneously intimate and exposed garment, a tragedy written for 11 thong personalities in 10 acts, which are never shown numerically.

The reading and the discussions will be in English.

 

 

(Support)

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Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, RESIDUAL SKY, installation view Kunsthaus Glarus, 2026. Photo: Gina Folly
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Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, RESIDUAL SKY, installation view Kunsthaus Glarus, 2026. Photo: Gina Folly
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Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, RESIDUAL SKY, installation view Kunsthaus Glarus, 2026. Photo: Gina Folly
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Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, RESIDUAL SKY, installation view Kunsthaus Glarus, 2026. Photo: Gina Folly
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Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, RESIDUAL SKY, installation view Kunsthaus Glarus, 2026. Photo: Gina Folly
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Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, RESIDUAL SKY, installation view Kunsthaus Glarus, 2026. Photo: Gina Folly
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Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, RESIDUAL SKY, installation view Kunsthaus Glarus, 2026. Photo: Gina Folly
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Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, RESIDUAL SKY, installation view Kunsthaus Glarus, 2026. Photo: Gina Folly
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Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, RESIDUAL SKY, installation view Kunsthaus Glarus, 2026. Photo: Gina Folly
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