Jack Elliot Cardno @j-e-c-photography - Tumblr Blog

media vessel v.1

Ama Virgin

In 2013 I travelled to Ghana to work for a newspaper. When I arrived, however, I learnt that the Kumasi Mail, the newspaper I was supposed to be attached with, had gone bankrupt. Whilst finding my feet and working various photography jobs I met Ama Virgin. A transvestite, more out of a capital necessity fused with showmanship then out of desire or sexuality, who believes that god gave him the gift to move like a woman and in so doing a holy mandate to entertain.

Sista Walks the Stairs

For Tehran

Bantama, Kumasi June 2015

Preparations for the Local style wedding and the Western style wedding

Accra Ghana

January 2014

Views.

Holiday snaps circa 2012

The Ashanti Home Touch Hotel

I was invited to photograph the opening night of this mesmerising hotel. It was full of intriguing characters. One of which, Ama Virgin, is the subject of an article and photo series I recently did for Accent magazine.

Kumasi, Ghana.

December, 2013.

I made a Whoopie-Cushion out of a pure water sachet, a balloon, some tape and a straw.

Kumasi, Ghana.

January, 2014.

#neocolonialism

The Volta River and Moses.

Mankango, Ghana.

January, 2014

Ross and Rixy in the nature reserve.

Cardiff

2012.

Drug dealing from the sewers of Adum.

A young man called Corruption told me a story about when the police tried to shut down the extremely conspicuous drug market these guys are operating. The Kumasi Police Force threw tear gas into the sewers in an attempt to stop people selling in this area, this is the main fecal artery for central Kumasi, and it's totally open in many places. Residents complained of genital irritation for weeks after.

Note the turd puree dribbling out of the holes in the walls.

Kumasi, Ghana.

2013.

Hangin' with the A Boys.

Cardiff, Manchester, London.

2012/2013.

In 2005 the New Patriotic Party started construction of government-funded housing blocks on the border of Ayigya Zongo and Asokore Mampong known in Kumasi simply as Affordable Housing.

So competitive and reactionary is politics in this system (a multi-party democratic republic almost entirely modelled on that of their former colonial leaders, the UK) that when The National Democratic Congress got into power in 2008 they halted construction on this site and set up a new deal for even more housing elsewhere. This attempt to reserve glory for themselves collapsed, and Affordable Housing has been stood, mid-completion, on the initial site, for over 5 years.

Many complex factors have lead to people choosing to take this place as their home but the popular opinion, the one fostered by the local media, imagines the inhabitants of this sprawling stretch of skeletal structures as bands of nomadic criminals committed to midnight lootings and killings. The periphery of this area is constantly patrolled by police armed with assault rifles.

During the multiple visits that I made I met families who had set up their own schools, their own co-operative style shops and their own football team, the Affordable All Stars.

Affordable Housing Site, on the border of Ayigya Zongo and Asakore Mampong, Kumasi, Ghana.

2013.