Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi: Performance as Radical Resistance

Va-Benes radical performances consistently demonstrate genuine empathy, compassion, and solidarity, inviting participants, witnesses, and bystanders to contemplate the global rise of fascist movements and challenge anti-queer forces that condemn LGBTQIA+ individuals both within and outside Ghana.

As the founder and director of perfocraZe International Artist Residency (pIAR), Our Railway Cinema Gallery (ORCG) and crazinisT artisT studiO (TTO), which are currently at risk due to the proposed anti-LGBTQIA+ Bill in Ghana, Va-Bene will also detail the genesis of her advocacy. This shift from painting to performance involved practically removing her body from the canvas and onto the streets of Ghana as an act of resistance and a decolonial process. Her presentation will unveil the persecution of the LGBTQIA+ community in Ghana and the draconian anti-LGBTQIA+ Bill that seeks to criminalize and imprison queer people, allies, parents, landlords, sympathizers, and others.

Born 1981 in Ho, Ghana, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi aka crazinisT artisT is a trans woman with the pronoun sHit if not She. Va-Bene lives in Kumasi, Ghana but works internationally as a multidisciplinary “artivist”, curator, philanthropist, artvangelist and a mentor across several countries. She is the founder and artistic director of crazinisT artisT studiO (TTO), Our Railway Cinema Gallery (ORCG), perfocraZe International Artists Residency (pIAR), Va-Bene Scholarship and Mentorship Residency Abroad and Trans African Ambassadors Network (TAAN). All of which aimed at radicalising the arts and promoting exchange between international and local artists, activists, researchers, curators, and critical thinkers. As a performer and installation artist, crazinisT investigates gender stereotypes, prejudices, queerness, identity politics and conflicts, sexual stigma and their consequences for marginalised groups or individuals. With rituals and a gender-fluid persona, She employs her own body as a thought-provoking tool in performances, photography, video, and installations, ‘life-and-live-art’ confronting issues such as disenfranchisement, injustice, violence, objectification, internalised oppression, anti blackness, systemic indoctrination and many more.

She is a recipient of the 2024 Prince Claus Impact Award, recognized for her unwavering dedication and commitment to art, culture, and activism in Ghana and internationally.