2019 – On going
When I used to go to the Saint Pierre market (the main fabrics market in Paris), I would stop at the Barbès metro station, on line 4. It wasn’t always easy to walk around in that neighborhood as a 20 year-old woman, always approached, accosted, sometimes whistled at. It is unpleasant.
Between the Saint Pierre market and the Barbès metro station, there was Tati, a famous discount store. I always entered through Tati’s front entrance and exited at the far end of the store to avoid guys and all sorts of interactions. Sometimes I stopped to buy bits and pieces, but what I preferred were their iconic pink and white bags, which became a symbol of migration and métissage.
When I moved to London, I realised that the Tati bags were actually inspired by “Ghana-must-go” bags. I was always moving between rooms and apartments, and I had no money, so I used these bags which were very convenient. After this I learnt that, in 1991, Azzedine Alaïa had created a collection inspired by Tati bags, which merged the symbols of high fashion with this artefact of popular culture. Even Phoebe Philo later designed a fashion collection inspired from “Ghana-must- go” bags.
It is only later, after I had constructed my own personal memories and symbols around these bags, that I discovered their history and their great symbolic weight. They were given this name as they were used by Ghanaian migrants in Nigeria when they were forced back to their own country, in 1983, after being portrayed as criminals by government officials. Their expulsion was announced on television on the 17 of January, and they were given 14 days to leave. As they rushed back to Ghana, they carried their possessions in these bags made of woven plastic.
“Ghana-must-go” bags serve as a poignant illustration of the different meanings that a single type of pattern can convey across contexts, historical events, and personal journeys. In the end, for me, the symbol of exclusion resonates most profoundly. Yet by printing the pattern of “Ghana-must-go” bags on my weaves, I try to convey a sense of its multiple and conflicting personal and collective meanings.
