- Good evening.
My name is Prince Gyasi.
I am a visual artist and a co-founder of Bosedkids.
I'm from Accra Ghana, West Africa to be precise.
I usually tell stories through my iPhone lens
and with the use of color.
The big question is why do I use an iPhone?
And why do I use color?
I don't use an iPhone just because I wanna be unique
but I use an iPhone because I believe as an artist,
you can use whatever tool or whatever equipment you have
to tell your stories.
Also I use color because
I want people to be mentally and emotionally healed
by just looking at my images or my art pieces.
Let's see the first image.
This is a little kid, a six year old Black American,
who as the first Black American to be accepted
in an all-white public school.
She is Ruby Bridges.
I think she's old now.
So I usually tell stories
around the themes of education, hope, love, care, guidance,
and so on.
As an artist, I think for me
to be able to contribute to the solutions
to the problems of Africa or Ghana,
I have to use my art or my iPhone to tell these stories
to create awareness in Ghana.
So I decided to create something
around this theme, education.
This shows that education has been a problem
for very long time for a people of color.
So I created a present visual representation of education,
which is this one.
Is from the Faces Series,
and it's called ignorance cost money too.
In Ghana, people usually say education is expensive.
Forgetting that ignorance is expensive too,
it costs way more money than education.
In an old district called Jamestown in Accra,
which played a part in slavery back in the days,
there are kids who are indulging in fishing
When they're given birth to.
When their parents give birth to them,
they go through a cycle fishing
and they never make it to school,
and the grew up to become fishmongers or fishermen.
This is contributing to poverty in Africa.
People forget that education could be a bigger solution
to our problems.
This is a kid who has to sell these stuff
and give the money to their parents,
for his or her parent to be able to provide food for them.
This is a kid who has to sell oranges,
give them money to their parents as well,
for a parent to provide food for them.
This was shot at the Elmina,
which also played a part in slavery
but with the same background story
that the kids in Jamestown are facing.
This is a visual representation of strength.
I'm saying that if we're able to solve
problem of education, these kids could be a better people
or great leaders in future.
This is the Weight Two from the boxedkids series.
I wanted to talk a little bit about Boxedkids.
Boxedkids is a nonprofit organization.
I'm a co-founder.
My partner is Kuukua Eshun, she's based in the US.
These kids, I found them at 6 a.m. in November 2018.
These kids were hungry.
And I asked them, why are you sitting there?
They said,
this is something that we go through every single day.
We never know what we're gonna eat in a day.
All we know is we're gonna join our parents
in fishing in order to eat at the end of the day.
I found it very sad and as an artist,
I thought there's a need for me to tell these stories
through my art.
This is an evidence.
The kids are fishing.
If they don't do this, they don't eat at the end of the day.
The reason why I play recordings a lot is because
most visual artists tell African stories in a negative way,
even though we're going through difficulties,
I think for the new generation, especially me,
I have to tell these stories in a more beautiful way.
So these kids when you see them,
they know they can be great people in future.
Because this signifies hope.
These are twins in Jamestown.
Yeah.
So this image right here, before I get into it,
I have a mouth anesthesia,
I don't know if you know about that.
I see words in colors.
I see words or alphabets in colors so A is red
B is yellow, C is white, D is black, E is brown,
F is orange, G dark green,
H is peach, I is white,
J is dark green as well and so on.
The reason why I use red
and the reason why I'm speaking about this,
is because red signifies labor, black sacrifice
and I think this piece called fatherhood,
which is one of my most powerful pieces I've ever created,
is telling a story of a kid,
who doesn't have a father figure in their lives.
This is a true story from Jamestown.
But obviously this is not the kid who lost his parents.
But I wanted to use the early stage of a kid to depict
the story of this kid from Jamestown.
And this kid lost his parents
and has no father figure in their lives.
Education being a problem already,
imagine not having a father in your life.
You will not be able to go to school number one,
and not be able to eat as well you go hungry.
So I thought I should create something about fatherhood,
to show that we don't have to be biological fathers
or biological siblings to these kids but we can still
show the love a father will show to a child.
The reason I use red is because like I said, labor.
And the reason I use blue is because I want to tell you that
if you are able to show this love or care to this kid,
blue signifies calmness.
All this mental health issues they're going through,
they're definitely gonna be calm
and everything will be great for them.
This is a continuation of fatherhood.
This is called Almost Home.
It also tells us the journey of the kid
having a father figure who's guiding them through life
and showing them what is right and what is wrong.
Before I get to that,
I also see the days of the week in colors.
Monday is brown, Tuesday is orange as you can see,
skoll forum is also orange.
Wednesday is blue, Thursday is grey, Friday is red
Saturday is white, Sunday is green.
I see these things and has helped me develop
my use of color.
So everything I do with Color is meaningful,
I don't just choose them.
This is called Agony of Orphan.
It shows the pain that losing a father in your life
brings to a child.
This is the burden they go through, the burden they carry.
The stone signifies a burden,
of course I can put too many stones.
You can't carry them.
This is a powerful piece called Patience on Purpose.
Mostly people fight the process of life.
I believe that if you trust the process,
and you work hard, and you focus,
everything you're creating, when it comes together,
there will be a greater picture.
You can see two guys looking at one direction because
they believe that if they trust the process,
they're gonna be great people in future.
So as you can see I use blue because it signifies calmness
and white because the signifies victory.
So whatever you creating if you're calm your patient
and you trust the process, you're gonna be victorious
at the end of the day.
This is a visual representation of kids playing
and I call it seeds because is a continuation
of what I showed you earlier.
It simply means that seeds take time to grow.
So whatever you're creating, don't give up, keep going
and you definitely reach your potential.
This is a man of many nations.
As you can see, all these colors represent every color
of a country in the world.
This man is a great leader now
because he trusted the process.
So it's just conceptual storytelling that I usually do
with my eye.
This is Crumple Zone from the Control Series.
I just wanted to let people know that
certain times we have weaknesses
and we give too much strengths to the weaknesses.
I believe we can channel our energy to our weakness
and turn them into strength.
So that's why I created this
because usually in Accra Ghana, I'll tell you a story,
in Accra Ghana usually when you are late,
you take a motorbike because you wanna
maneuver your way through.
And I believe that if we focus
sometimes there will be bad situations,
there will be obstacles that we have
to do certain things to be able to achieve
what we want to achieve.
So for me, in the App Store idea I decided to use helmets.
Because in that way it's telling you,
run fast but don't run out of gas.
This is Energy is Contagious from also the Control Series.
You can see these zippers.
Usually zippers open a way to certain parts,
I don't wanna mention, but I wanted to use this
to be able to tell you a story of how we can
protect ourselves from certain energies
because these are what contribute to our mental health.
And if you are you having mental health issues,
don't be afraid to speak out to a friend
or talk to a friend.
This also talks about what goes on in Africa,
sometimes I know all over the world it happens.
When people are pushing through something.
This water signifies hope, and the sacrifice that this guy
has put into his life for his career.
But there are certain people
who are usually pulling you back
because they don't want you to be where you want to be.
Obviously, bondage, mental slavery, like I said.
And this is from the Faces Series called Mood Swings.
Is a visual representation of how people
who have mental health go through mood swings,
different emotions.
And I wanted to show that visually because I always thought,
how can I show this?
How can I help people to be able to see this?
I See all emotions in colors as well.
This is very important for every woman to see this.
In Africa, in Ghana, women usually go to a lot
when they are growing up.
They have a lot of responsibilities.
They take care of the kids, they sacrifice
and when they get married
before even when they have a kid when they get married,
they take care of their husbands as well
'cause some husbands are a bit disorganized.
So, I was showing this as responsibility.
That's the name, the name is responsibility.
So am showing how women from Africa are responsible
and how they strive to helping men grow
because every successful woman,
there is a woman behind that man.
This is Dignity.
Is also the same story.
If we're able to solve problem, which Boxedkids is doing,
if we're able to do this, these kids are gonna come up
with flying colors.
This shows the strength of motherhood in Africa.
This is how visually mothers carry their babies in Ghana.
I mean, we're in the modern world now.
People push but we still do this
'cause we believe this is more safer.
This shows the strength of women.
Women have to sell stuff in Ghana,
to be able to provide food for their kids.
It's very important that we all know this,
because I know most people haven't been to Africa
or Ghana yet.
But I always wanted to tell a story
of how powerful women are from Ghana.
This is also a modern way of showing the strength of women.
As you can see, this is called the Symbols of Womanhood.
It's self explanatory.
Yes for that.
So Boxedkids is basically
trying to help kids get an education.
It was inspired by when my partner and I went to Jamestown,
and we found a kid making boats out of sticks.
We thought this is creative but this kid doesn't know
what he's doing.
He doesn't know this could be the purpose of his life,
because he doesn't have education.
So for me in 2016, my mom is a singer,
She got donations from other people when she did a funfair
for these kids in Jamestown.
And she was giving them food and drinks.
But for me, as an artist,
I thought food and drinks doesn't solve the problem.
So what can I do?
When I make money, I'm gonna give education to these kids.
But I found out in 2017 that I don't need money to do this.
I can always use my art to tell these stories,
create awareness
and create a system that can solve this problems.
So that's what Boxedkids is.
And boxedkids simply means a kid who's trapped
in a situation that they can't get out of.
In other words, the situation is a box.
Ladies and gentlemen,
my name is Prince Gyasi and this is my story.