Accra's Chalewote Street Art Festival, a lively celebration of creativity and culture, has developed into a phenomenon that is recognized all over the world.
In an open interview, the festival's originator, Mantse Aryeequaye, said that the event has gone from relative obscurity to garnering attention on an international scale.
Aryeequaye underlined that Chalewote didn't receive considerable notoriety until around the year 2015 in her presentation.
"When we first began work on Chalewote, nobody paid any attention to it until 2015," you said. The press that we receive internationally is more reliable than the press that we receive locally. If you go online and read articles that have been written on chalewote, you will find that the majority of them were written by people who are not from Ghana.
When we first established ChaleWote, we had the financial resources necessary to pay for advertising, therefore we were forced to build our own outlet. I can still remember us walking into one of the media houses and getting a rate card. After that, I went back to my people and told them that if we went through this route, then this event would not take place. Therefore, we made extensive use of various social media platforms," he explained.
In the first stages of Chalewote, there was a noticeable lack of interest from the general public. Aryeequaye urged the audience members to become more curious about the activities taking place in their respective localities.
He emphasized the significance of asking questions and seeking understanding, particularly in regard to behaviors that may appear strange or foreign.
"When something is happening in your community that you do not understand and the people around you are not very far away; some of them may even be in close proximity to the event, you just ask inquiries. "Let's be more forward-thinking and imaginative in how we perceive things that we supposedly find unusual in our community," he urged. "Let's see things as they are, not how we think they should be."
He made the point that the event received more considerable publicity in the foreign media in comparison to the coverage it received in the local media.
The unconventional and forward-thinking manner in which the festival presented works of art and cultural heritage frequently caused confusion and raised eyebrows.
Aryeequaye acknowledged the initial lack of understanding as well as the unhappiness that surrounded Chalewote. She emphasized the requirement for open discussion as well as curiosity in order to bridge the gap between novel notions and the community.
"There was a significant amount of dissatisfaction with it. People were giving it the middle finger when you could just ask questions because it was obvious that people didn't understand, and even now, people don't really comprehend what Chalewote is all about," he continued.
The Chalewote Street Art Festival has developed into a dynamic platform that welcomes uniqueness, creative expression, and the sharing of cultural traditions. It has evolved into a shining example of artistic expression that draws people from all over the world, both as participants and as spectators.
Mantse Aryeequaye's dedication to cultivating discourse and promoting art in all of its forms has catapulted Chalewote into the international scene, despite the fact that the road to recognition was not without its share of obstacles.