Africa-Press – Ghana. The streets of Osu in Accra throbbed with ancestral memory on Monday as the 15th edition of the Chale Wote Street Art Festival opened with the Day of Remembrance.
It was a ritual procession that merged spirituality, history, and art into one profound experience.
Led by a traditional priest draped in immaculate white calico, his acolytes adorned with strands of purifying green sacred leaves, the procession began at the Osu Klottey Temple, wound through narrow alleyways once burdened by the footsteps of enslaved Africans, and settled at the iconic Independence Arch and Nationalism Park.
A walk of lament and hope it was and a commemoration of loss and a reclamation of vision.
A drummers pounded ancestral rhythms that echoed and awakened Ga Mashie’s ancestral spirits, swirling through the alleyways once trumpled by the tired and whipped feet of enslaved Africans bound for gate of no return at Forts into the belly of ships bound beyond the Atlantic.
With each throb, a “Borborbo” ensemble also had its share of the day as its female dancers twirled ecstatically to the excitement of patrons, mostly people from the diaspora.
This year’s festival, running from August 19 to 24, 2025, adopts the theme, “The Orbs Beneath the Nile Lead to Kongo,” which signals a deeper engagement with Africa’s geopolitical history.
Festival Director Mantse Nii Aryeequaye calls it “a reclamation of the dream that Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah once had, to turn Ghana and Congo into a unified state.”
“We are witnessing the greatest geopolitical shift in Africa since independence. ” Nii Aryeequaye tells the Ghana News Agency in an interview.
“Young Africans are awakening to the neo-imperial chokehold of Euro-American power, and through art, festivals like Chale Wote are reclaiming suppressed histories and shaping a Pan-African future, ” he said with smile.
Spiritual undertaking
For many participants, the opening ritual was more than a performance; it was a healing act.
A 60-year-old American artist Stasi Bobo-Lion, saw in it “something close to spiritual.”
Clutching green leaves she had received during the procession, she explained: “We were told these herbs were for protection. To walk with them, dressed in white, was to be part of a sacred calling. I feel so blessed to be here, to stand on the continent my ancestors were taken from.”
The symbolism was powerful; the white linen, the libation, the rhythm of the drums, all gestures towards remembrance of the enslaved, the lost, and the silenced and the return.
Yet it was also about continuity, about honouring heritage while asserting presence.
Festival beyond art
Chale Wote, a Ga word for “Friend, let’s go”, has evolved over its 15-year history into more than a street art festival.
Chale is a Ghanaian colloquial term for friend. It is used for persons who are deemed accepted.
Once centred in James Town, it now spills into Independence Square, Nationalism Park, and the wider Osu municipality.
What began as a platform for murals and street performance has grown into a week-long immersion of visual art, film, fashion, music, design, and dance and the Ghanaian culinary experience.
The Shika Shika Art Fair, hosted at Nationalism Park, will showcase works from Ghana, Brazil, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Americas.
For diaspora visitors, like Brianna Odoi, a perfumer and olfactive artist, the festival is a bridge back to Africa, as she says, “Chale Wote is not only about street partying, it’s about culture, togetherness, and learning from one another.”
Nii Aryeequaye reinforced this ethos, stating that, “Pan-Africanism drives our practice. When people of African descent from around the world converge here because of Chale Wote, it shows we are doing something right.”
Stories woven in colour
The art itself mirrors the theme of reclamation. Sculptures rise out of recycled metal, murals bloom across colonial walls, and performers claim public spaces with bold interventions.
For Stasi Bobo-Ligon, the collaboration is as important as the exhibition and that “there are stories we share across Ghana and America.”
“Through art, we can tell those stories together, our common struggles, our joys, and even our differences. It’s another way of pushing tourism and the arts economy forward,” she notes.
At the Shika Shika Art Fair, installations interrogate Africa’s place in global politics while celebrating indigenous knowledge.
One striking piece reimagines the Congo River as an orb of light linking Africa’s destiny to its resources, while another juxtaposes Kwame Nkrumah’s life with contemporary graffiti to reflect the unfinished project of Liberation.
In much the same way, Ghanaian artist Charity Derby Akeiti’s work echoes the cultural bridges between the Ga people of Osu and communities in Congo; two societies whose cultural identities are deeply shaped by ancestral memory and the symbolism of water.
The Ga’s seafaring traditions and sacred rituals of remembrance mirror Congo’s riverine spirituality, where water is revered as both a source of life and a passageway of memory.
By weaving symbols of these intertwined heritages, Ms Akeiti’s art reminds festival-goers that the survival of African culture rests on reclaiming suppressed traditions and celebrating the shared rhythms that bind West and Central Africa together.
Tourism and trade
Beyond culture, Chale Wote injects life into Accra’s economy. Street vendors sell everything from kente scarves to grilled tilapia, while small businesses thrive on the influx of visitors.
Over the years, the festival has created thousands of direct and indirect jobs, according to organisers.
Hotels in Osu may fill to capacity; ride-hailing services and tro-tros buzz with festival-goers; artisans find new markets for their craft.
Nii Aryeequaye indicates that Chale Wote has evolved into a major driver of Ghana’s creative economy, serving as one of the clearest examples of how art fuels national economic activity.
Space of healing and return
For diasporans, however, the gains are less material and more spiritual.
“Everyone here says ‘welcome home.”Ms Bobo-Ligon says with a smile, and adds that “It makes me feel I belong. I’ve traced 70 per cent of my ancestry to West Africa. To walk these streets, to feel this welcome – it’s priceless.”
The festival has become n pilgrimage, drawing African Americans, Caribbeans, and Afro-Europeans seeking reconnection and restoration.
Unlike the solemnity of visiting slave castles, Chale Wote offers a space of joy, art, and resilience, a celebration of survival as much as a remembrance of trauma.
Festival of the future
As the week unfolds, performances will move to Independence Square for the Grand Concert, where Ghanaian and international acts promise Accra electrifying nights.
The closing, as always, will be a carnival of music, colour, and movement, transforming Accra into Africa’s cultural capital.
Yet at its core, Chale Wote remains faithful to its community roots. Its remembrance rituals bind it to the painful history of Osu, its creative interventions insist on art as resistance, and its Pan-African ethos bridges the gaps of geography and time.
As Brianna Odoi aptly puts it: “It’s about togetherness. It’s about learning from one another. Chale Wote reminds us that we are one people.”
Epilogue
When the last drumbeat fades and the murals are painted over, the memory of Chale Wote lingers, not just in photographs and videos, but in the shared consciousness of a people reclaiming their story.
From Osu’s alleyways to Black Star Square, from Ghana to Congo, from Africa to its diaspora, the festival is a reminder that art is not just about beauty, it is about survival, memory, and libération and spirituality.
Fifteen years on, Chale Wote is more than an arts festival. It is Africa in motion, Africa remembering, and Africa reimagining itself.
Everyone is Charle (friend) and, everyone is beckoned to come along (wote).
Source: Ghana News Agency
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