Asantewaa Tumi

Asantewaa Tumi is part of an ongoing series titled Asantewaa’s Odyssey. In this body of work, I mythicize and intertwine my Asante and Akyem roots, through the fictional heroine ‘Asantewaa’ and her companion ‘Ɔsebɔ’, a leopard. 

Pieces in this series channel the resilience of the historical figure Yaa Asantewaa, the famed Queen Mother, activist and intellectual who led the Asante's to war against the British in 1900, and the strength, courage and power of the leopard, the totem of the Akyem Abuakwa people. 

Through this series, I pay tribute to strong Akan women like Yaa Asantewaa, while simultaneously urging unity and a rediscovery of our untold stories, particularly those that capture the essence of the anticolonial and decolonial spirit.

‘Tumi’ is a Twi word which translates to ‘power’.