‘Woori Festival: A Festival of Our Weaving Tradition’ is a vibrant celebration that showcases the rich cultural heritage of weaving in Ghana. Launched in 2021, this dynamic 3-day festival fosters artistic innovation and community pride. Attendees experience live weaving demonstrations, skill transfer workshops, music concerts, poetry performances, film screenings and art exhibitions.
About Woori
‘Woori’ meaning ‘to weave’ in the local Waali language, encapsulates our core focus on Ghana’s rich weaving tradition while promoting inclusivity through partnerships with Women’s Weaving Associations in Nandom, Nadowli and Wa as well as with Schools for the Blind and Deaf in Wa. Over the past four years, our festival has attracted approximately 2,450 attendees, comprising 200 local weavers, and has showcased over 33 contemporary artists. With over 3,500 attendees expected in the 5th edition of the festival in 2025, we are poised to deliver another exciting festival.
Woori Festival 2025 returns to Wa as a celebration of weaving, collaboration, and community. Through exhibitions, workshops, performances, and skill exchanges, the festival explores the role of collaboration in harnessing the potential of weaving for socio-economic development.
Scroll down to learn more about the programme.
Overview
“Woori 2025 Festival:
The role of collaboration in harnessing the potential of weaving for socio-economic development.”
Woori Festival 2025 brings together artists, weavers, designers, performers, and cultural practitioners whose work is grounded in collective practice and shared knowledge. Held at the Nubuke Foundation Centre for Textiles and Clay in Loho near Wa, the fifth edition of the festival is guided by the theme “The role of collaboration in harnessing the potential of weaving for socio-economic development.” The participating artists approach weaving not only as a material practice, but as a social and economic framework shaped by cooperation, intergenerational exchange, and community resilience.
At the heart of the festival are master weavers and weaving associations from Nadowli, Nandom, and Wa, whose practices span traditional looms, contemporary adaptations, and sustainable approaches to textile production. Through live demonstrations, workshops, and skill-exchange sessions, these practitioners share techniques and knowledge that highlight weaving’s enduring relevance to livelihoods, cultural identity, and local economies in the Upper West Region.
Complementing this are artistic contributions across textile, fibre, installation, performance, film, sound, fashion, and poetry by artists including Jemima Fordjour, Blanche Boni-Mississo, Emmanuel Aggrey Tieku, Simon Bowman Jnr, King David Osabutey, Fran, Dzidefo Amegatsey, and Enoch Laryea Nii-Adjei. Working alongside local communities, children, youth, and members of the visually impaired and deaf communities, the artists of Woori 2025 explore collaboration as both method and message—positioning weaving as a living practice capable of shaping more inclusive and sustainable futures.
2025 Artists
Blanche Boni-Mississo
Karin Altmann
AFROSCOPE
Enoch Laryea
Nana Yaa Asare-Boadu
Salim Wumpini Fuseini
Dzidefo Amegatsey
Simon Bowman Jnr
Emmanuel Tieku
King David Osabutey
Jemima Fordjour
Fran
Blanche Boni-Mississo
Flowers frequently appear in her work as symbolic and playful forms—rendered through bold contours, animated colour, and spontaneous mark-making—while unconventional surfaces such as polythene rolls become sites for experimentation and interaction. Through these materials and methods, Boni-Mississo questions how audiences engage with art, each other, and the spaces they inhabit.
She lives and works between Accra and Kumasi, and is currently completing a BFA in Painting and Sculpture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). Alongside her studio practice, she has facilitated art workshops for children, reflecting her ongoing interest in accessibility, collective experience, and learning through making.
Installation
Karin Altmann
Research
AFROSCOPE
Digital Art
Mixed Media
Enoch Laryea
He is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work includes painting, ceramics, illustration, graffiti, and sculpture. Using these media, he engages audiences in an open dialogue on a variety of discursive cultural themes. Nii Adjei works with clay, cement, pencil and ink, pastel, charcoal, chalk, acrylic and oil Paint, can spray, and fiberglass.
His works have been exhibited in shows with the Nubuke Foundation, Ulti-Leaf Foundation, Ghana Commission for UNESCO, UN Information Center (UNIC) Accra, and the Ghana Association of Visual Artists.
Enoch has been practicing clay sculpting professionally since 2012, and he uses local Clay from Ghana. He draws inspiration from his imagination, culture, and nature.
Painting
Nana Yaa Asare-Boadu
Salim Wumpini Fuseini
Trained in Fine Art at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Fuseini began experimenting with alternative materials during his studies, initially working with discarded car tyres before developing a distinctive sculptural language using wire mesh. Through this medium, he creates textured surfaces that shift with light and shadow, evoking movement, depth, and tonal nuance while challenging perceptions of weight, solidity, and permanence.
Alongside his professional work with the Ministry of Defence, Fuseini remains deeply committed to his studio practice. He approaches each sculpture as a living entity, guided by the belief that every work carries its own spirit. Through transformation and reuse, his work reflects on heritage, resilience, and the expansive possibilities of material in contemporary African sculpture.