© Michael Kwame Pocho Dakwa
Rita Mawuena Benissan is a Ghanaian American interdisciplinary artist, re-imagining the royal umbrella. Transcending its traditional role as a protective object, Benissan is creating the embodiment of the beauty and power of individuals and communities through fabrication and design. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Apparel and Textile Design at Michigan State University in 2017, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in photography with a certificate in African Studies Program from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2021. In 2020, she founded Si Hene, a foundation dedicated to preserving Ghana's chieftaincy and traditional culture. Benissan's works have been showcased in galleries spanning the United States, Germany, and Senegal, including the prestigious Dak'Art - Biennale de l'Art Africain Contemporain (2022), and Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York (2023). She exhibited her solo exhibition, "In the World not of the World," curated by the renowned British-Ghanaian curator Ekow Eshun, at Gallery 1957 in Accra, Ghana (2023).