Step into a boxing ring. Stand face-to-face with the leaders and resisters who shaped history. Walk through waves of figures rising from the pages of the Financial Times.

Experience Godfried Donkor’s first UK institutional show at Firstsite – a powerful, immersive exploration of the shared histories between Britain, West Africa, and the Caribbean, revealing how Colchester’s own past is deeply intertwined with Ghana’s.

What to expect

Bringing together large-scale collages, paintings, textiles and installation, the exhibition fills the building with colour, sound and energy – inviting you to think about history in a completely new way.

Encounter bold, visually striking works that combine beauty with powerful ideas – from intricate embroidered symbols to monumental collages built from the pages of financial news.

Plus, experience one of the gallery spaces like never before as it’s transformed into a boxing ring, capturing the sounds and atmosphere of the sport, one of Godfried’s key themes.

For the artist, boxing represents movement, struggle, and opportunity, reflecting the journeys of people across cultures and continents.

Colchester’s historical influence

The exhibition connects Boudicca’s rebellion to the resistance of Yaa Asantewaa in Ghana, creating a striking link between local and international histories.

It also responds to the work of Colchester-born writer and illustrator Sarah Bowditch, whose 19th-century images of the Ashanti are reimagined through Donkor’s contemporary perspective.

About the exhibition

Godfried’s work draws on stories that connect Britain, West Africa, and the Caribbean.

By combining archival photographs from a century ago with imagery from today, Financial Times pages with Ghanaian symbols, European heraldry with African textiles, Godfried illustrates his view that ‘everything is mixed’ – that cultures blend, overlap, and enrich each other.

These layered artworks explore identity, power, and global trade and how systems of money and empire have shaped – and been resisted by – people across continents.

Godfried Donkor says, “Histories are layered, repeated and reinterpreted over time. Through combining different visual languages, materials and archives, I explore how history and power are not fixed, but entwined and shaped through exchange, memory and perspective.

At Firstsite, this is grounded in Colchester’s own story – connecting Boudicca’s resistance to that of Yaa Asantewaa, and to Sarah Bowditch’s 19th-century documentation of the Ashanti.

These histories are not separate, but part of the same ongoing conversation – continuing to shift, overlap and reveal new meanings as they are seen again.”

About Godfried Donkor

Godfried Donkor is a mixed-media and multidisciplinary artist interested in the socio-historical relationships of Africa, Europe and the Caribbean.

Known for his collages utilising newspaper and gold leaf in a religious-like imagery. As well as paintings which explore the relationship between the slave trade and boxing, and sculptures which offer a new take on the traditional adinkra symbolism of Ghana.

Donkor completed a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, London, and a Master of Arts in African Art History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. 

In 1998, the artist was awarded the Prix de la Revelation at the Dakar Biennale.

‘It’s a Numbers Game’ coincides with a significant year for Godfried, who will also participate in the main exhibition of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

For the Venice presentation, Godfried will unveil a newly commissioned painting alongside three new paintings, as well as four works on paper originally produced for his 2017 exhibition “The First Day of the Yam Custom: 1817,” curated by the late Koyo Kouoh at Gallery 1957 in 2017.

With special thanks to Trevor Fenwick, Lead Partner, whose generous support has made this exhibition possible.