"We" and by that I mean mainly Baba Sylla, the antique dealer from Mali who has settled in Accra, have never collected such an amazing PramPram figure as this one. With its life-size dimensions (172 cm), it is the largest figure of this small ethnic group that has probably ever made it to the Western market. Like many of these figures, it stands on extremely fragile legs (and it also has equally delicate arms) that have made the long journey from a small village about 60 km from Accra, Ghana.

The long journey by bus across the border to Togo until our plinth maker Willy in Lomé fitted her with a perfect iron foot. Finally, the figure arrives in Berlin from Lomé airport via the agent of our Lomé branch, Aguibou Kamate.

When you consider how many stations this fragile figure has gone through before we put it up in our gallery, it borders on a miracle that the fragile arms and legs have survived the journey well. I am sure that our two Berlin travel agents, Frank Stolpe and Thibaut Geraudie, will lovingly pack the artworks in our gallery and send them all over the world, and will also send this figure to its new owner in perfect condition.

When I still lived in Segou and we took our artworks to the National Museum in Bamako for export licences, I often saw the big, wooden transport boxes that had come from Quai Branley in Paris to the National Museum in Bamako. I don't know what the transport of the Ciwara exhibition alone cost plus insurance.

Next to them lay our objects, wrapped and unwrapped in cement sack paper and then wrapped again after the photographer of the National Museum had taken the photo, packed in cardboard boxes and the fragile parts of the figures secured with small pieces of wood, as you can still see on the floor against the wall in the photo in the gallery next to our photographer Ulrike Hullmann.

It is indescribable what perfect teamwork is necessary to realise such logistics with minimal costs and of course without any insurance on the way from a small village in Ghana to our gallery in Berlin. If one hand did not work perfectly with the other, it would hardly be possible to even plan such a journey as this figure has made.

And of course the figure needed an extra seat on the bus, which in turn aroused the curiosity of the customs officers and the usual military posts at the roadblocks that are supposed to protect the country from terrorist attacks, and required a good tip for the bus driver from Accra to Lomé.

sold

Height: 172 cm
Weight: 4,8 kg incl. metal stand