Photographer Kojo Anim
Exploring the twin brother’s taboo
Photo courtesy: Kojo Anim. African Sacrifice. (2020)
Kojo Anim is a twenty-two-year-old Ghanaian-based photographer —you might have seen some of his work at our latest virtual exhibition “Unveiled” from Issue no. 2. Kojo seeks a world where people accept and embrace their cultural heritage and diversity. His art attempts to create something new from the foundation of his simultaneously simple and complex culture, defending that every single person deserves equal human rights and integrity. In recent years, Kojo has been portraying and exploring the situation of those who are born as twins in some communities in Africa: a taboo that until today has divided not only people but entire communities.
In the southeast region of Madagascar, the Antambahoaka tribe lives with a strong “fady”, a Malagasy word for taboo, that for decades has strictly prohibited raising twins. This belief roots itself in thinking that twins belong to evil spirits and will bring bad luck and disgrace to their families and community. Additionally, economic and social pressure have led families in neighboring communities to follow this practice too. If a woman gives birth to a pair of “kambana”, a Malagasy word for twins, she is expected to abandon them.
In recent years, an increasing number of families have been rejecting this practice, being consequently ostracized by their community and forced to leave their home village to start a new life. Nowadays, even though this practice is regularly denounced by national and international bodies, the tradition is still deeply rooted.
For this issue, we invited Kojo to share some written thoughts about the Antambahoaka tribe and how the actual and controversial scene regarding the social inclusion of identical brothers has influenced his beautiful photography work.
Photo courtesy: Kojo Anim. The Black Prayer. (2020)
I have been exploring twin brothers in my artworks for quite a long time now. It might be a topic you may find difficult to relate to or even intriguing until you know the reason why I do so, as well as my point of view from the part of the world where I come from. Today, I consider myself blessed to have belonged to a generation that believed in the integrity of twins against the hostilities of the past.
If I had been born in the Antambahoaka tribe, I’m sure that my creativity and talent would have been a curse to my mother and the entire community. My mother wouldn’t have had the fault, but my birth would have led to her being ostracized while the loins from which I came from, would be relieved. Culture is the soul of every society and it is very difficult to separate people from some of these beliefs, no matter how outdated and irrelevant they might be to the current generations.
I am still wondering if twins have blood and kra (soul) that made them objects of mysticism. In some communities in Africa, people like me would have been killed because of our abilities and that is the belief: we are children from the evil demon spirits. It is hard to imagine how some communities in Africa today might still be in abject poverty and languishing in hunger because they might have killed the God-sent redeemers in the name of “twin abomination” culture. Those who were not killed might have become heroes in strange lands, doing many great things. But what I find most interesting is the proverb that clothed this culture: Anyone who keeps twins, has no soul.
Photo courtesy: Kojo Anim. Global Warming II (from the series two bodies that feels attraction). (2019)
Many women are rejected by their own patriots to the “twin villages” for their boldness to keep their own babies. I wonder if the act of giving birth —preceded by sexual intercourse— requires the man’s intervention as much as the woman’s; who states that it’s exclusively the woman’s fault for creating such an “abomination”? This is where I see how difficult and prevalent the situation faced by women has been deepened for centuries.
I consider myself a blessing. I have been there for my generation and for my family and this must be the joy of every woman who gives birth. Likewise, I can’t imagine how my Nigerian mother from the Annang tribe would have been punished by the Gods after becoming a mother to a pair of newborns with identical genes. I wonder if twins who are meant to become the next Goodluck, Achembes, or Buharis are being punished now.
I find it strange that our ancestors consider the novelty of nature a taboo. Fighting against the unknown and the inexplicable was part of the epicenter of socio-cultural development back then, but today, it’s only a red flag for backwardness. Because sooner Photo: Courtesy of the artist. or later, things fall apart.
Can you tell me I am not human enough to belong to my society? Tell me that I am not a blessing to my family and to my community. Tell me that I wasn’t born as a human being. Let me have those elders who are glued to the belief that I am a punishment from the Gods to my mother. If black lives matter, then let us ensure that twins’ lives matter too
Photo courtesy: Kojo Anim. Future Friends. (2020)