Trajectories of Urban Arts in Freetown, Sierra Leone

The thesis examines a selected range of contemporary art trajectories in Freetown, Sierra Leone, as a means to consider the ways in which urban arts are configured and some of their trajectories in the 20 th and 21 st centuries. Urban arts have often been positioned from a development perspective in Freetown's reconstruction post-civil war (1991-2002) which skews understandings of the agency of local and translocal artists, however defined. The thesis considers how artists situate themselves in particular (and sometimes across different) art worlds in Freetown and how they extend beyond the city to other regions and continents as part of regional and intercontinental networks, whether long standing or of more recent origin. Such networks often parallel the economic roles of Freetown since its inception within
global circuits.
Three forms of art making are focused upon as key trajectories of art articulated within Freetown's public spaces in shaping individual and collective identities as well as providing political and cultural resources for its inhabitants. These spaces are contested arenas where a range of social groupings assert their presence and compete through a variety of strategies and tactics, all within the specific urban domain and within the contexts of the nation state and its governmentalities. The focus of this thesis is to consider the importance of these art worlds and artists.
The selected modes of art making are masking associations and their conceptual and visual processes; photography; and contemporary modernist arts among other mediums of art which I encountered in Freetown. Each art world is considered through its historical trajectory and its current manifestations in Freetown are examined.
The thesis presents original research about key artists such as Louise Metzger and Christopher Greene, as well as other public arenas of multimedia practice such as Ordehlay masquerade. It highlights the interconnectivity of artists, art practices, and their artworlds, through a range of dynamically evolving networks and social relations within the social production of Freetown's urban spaces.