Kelvin Haizel

Kelvin Kwaku Haizel (1987, Accra) is a Ghanaian artist committed to understanding 'image' via received notions of the expanded field of the photographical. His extended bodies of work seem to ask: 'What can images do?'. It is a materialist attitude towards the production of images that sides with the multiplicity and plasticity of the image in its phenomenological manifestations. He has a painting practice that is hinged on pure abstraction and a photographic interest that abstracts from microbial activities on archival images.

During his residency at MORPHO, Haizel will be concerned with investigating the plasticity of archival images from the Gold Coast era. Considering the microbial activities on the archive as a process of co-editing or unfixing fixed photographs, the project will seek to draw out new narratives from the archive’s material histories.

His work has shown in Rencontres de Bamako, Biennale Africaine de la Photographie (2017), Stellenbosch Trienniale (2020), ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (2021), Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (2022), MARKK Museum at the 8th Hamburg Photography Triennial (2022), and participated in Documenta Fifteen (2022). Haizel is a doctoral student at KNUST College of Art in Kumasi.