When an artist sponsored by the KAAD exhibits at the Art Biennale in Venice, it is a source of joy and pride for the sponsor. After all, alongside the Documenta in Kassel, it is considered the most important art exhibition in the world. However, the fact that two KAAD-sponsored artists are exhibiting in their countries' pavilions at the 58th Biennale this year is quite extraordinary. Both are women from Africa who have been or are being sponsored by the KAAD for a Master's programme.
KAAD alumna Selasi Awusi Sosu is representing her home country Ghana with a glass art installation, while current scholarship holder Georgina Maxim is representing Zimbabwe with her textile art. Ghana is even celebrating its premiere at the Biennale; Zimbabwe is represented with a pavilion for the fifth time.
The two women embody the motto of this year's international art exhibition "May you live in interesting times" not only with their art, but also with their biographies:

Born in Ghana in 1976, Selasi Awusi Sosu completed her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Fine Arts at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana from 1997-2005. She was supported by a KAAD Sur-Place Scholarship for her Master's degree. She then worked as an art teacher in Kumasi before moving to the University of Education in Winneba, where she has been teaching ever since. Since 2008, she has also been studying for a doctorate at the KNUST while continuing to make a name for herself as a freelance artist, primarily with glass art. At the Biennale, for example, she exhibited her works about an abandoned glass factory in Ghana, using photography, videography and sound installations to simultaneously celebrate the aesthetics of glass and denounce the decay and mismanagement of the Ghanaian economy.