Ibrahim Mahama artist makes art out of cocoa bags bags and Ankara

Born in Tamale, Ghana in 1987 Ibrahim Mahama is an author and an artist of monumental installations. He obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Sculpture in 2013 and a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in Painting in 2010 at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.

*Ibrahim Mahama in Tamale, Ghana, April 2022. Photo: Carlos Idun-Tawiah*

Mahama is popular for his using of jute sacks, cloth bags once used to carry cocoa and now employed as vessels for coal. Each sack is inscribed with names and embellished with regional patterned fabrics. According to Mahama he ‘uses jute sacks because for him the history of crisis and failure is absorbed into theY material. Their history speaks of how global transactions and capitalist structures work. And because how their humbleness contrasts with the monumentality of the buildings they cover.” He grew up in a polygamous family, and once noted that his collaborative nature could be a result of this unique environment.

*Ibrahim Mahama. Question jam answer, 2013-2022. Wood panel wrapped in wax print cloth with jute thread. 72x72in. © the artist. Photo © White Cube (Theo Christelis)*

The artist in an interview talks on how unique the material in his work:

“The coal sacks began as an extension of how the body could be looked at. It contains all these system and makings of original owners, which have been transferred from the bodies creating a link between the two forms.

Ibrahim Mahama took part in the 56th International Art Exhibition in Venice. In that occasion the Ghanaian artist presented his installation “Out of Bounds” consisting in coarsely woven jute sacks wrapping the Troncone section of the Arsenale.

and rural areas in search of work. There is indeed a metaphor between the sacks and the nomadic and uncertain existence of people without documents or rights who seem to be subjected to the same conditions of the sacks – they endlessly travel through ports, warehouses, markets and cities, their living conditions precarious, their future uncertain.

*Ibrahim Mahama, An Age Of Our Own Making, Kunsthalle Charlottenborg, Nyhavn, Copenhagen Denmark, 2014-2016, 2016, installation view. Courtesy the artist and Apalazzogallery*

According to Irenebrination.com Mahama’s “Occupation” series started in 2012 and continued to expand, becoming more ambitious scale-wise: the artist, who took part in major exhibitions,

*Ibrahim Mahama, Out of Bounds, 2014-2015, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2015, installation view. Courtesy the artist and Apalazzogallery*

international fairs and events all over the world, covered indeed with his experimental textiles different public spaces including government buildings, theatres, market spaces, footbridges and old train stations, reclaiming them and giving them a new configuration and life.

*Ibrahim Mahama, Material Effects, Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, Michigan State University, Michigan, USA, 2014, installation view. Courtesy the artist and Apalazzogallery. Photo Credit: Aaron Word*

Mahama will represent Ghana on the occasion of the 58th Venice Biennale opening in May, but he is anticipating this new participation at the international event with another monumental installation, entitled “A Friend”.

***Ibrahim Mahama, Do Not Squart On The Seat, Please Sit On It, 2015, Accra, Ghana, installation view. Courtesy the artist***

Commissioned and presented by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi with the collaboration of miart in the framework of 2019 Milan Art Week, and curated by Massimiliano Gioni, the installation wraps up in Mahama’s trademark jute sacks the two neoclassical Caselli Daziari (Tollgates) at Porta Venezia in Milan (Piazza Guglielmo Oberdan; until 14th April).

*Ibrahim Mahama, Check Point Prosfygika. 1934-2034. 2016-2017, documenta 14, Syntagma Square, Athens, Greece, installation view. Courtesy the artist and Apalazzogallery*

The site-specific installation is a way to highlight the importance of this urban landmark: one of the six main gateways in the ancient city walls, the crossroads of Porta Venezia stand on the same axis as previously erected gates during the Roman, Medieval, and Spanish eras.

Ibrahim Mahama, Check Point Sekondi Loco. 1901-2030. 2016-2017, documenta 14, Kassel, Germany, installation view. Courtesy the artist and Apalazzogallery

A protagonist of the history of the city during catastrophic events such as the plague that devastated Milan in the 17th century (Porta Venezia also appears in Alessandro Manzoni’s historical novel The Betrothed), Porta Venezia
marks a sort of border between the urban fabric of the city and the countryside, so between the metropolis and the outside world.

Ibrahim the artist

As the crossroads also separate the city from the many multi-ethnic neighborhoods surrounding it, “A Friend” is conceived also as a threshold, a passage between the inside and outside and a way to meet new cultures.

In ancient times the main function of the gateway was that of being a place of trade and exchange, and this installation is also a way to tackle contemporary themes such as globalisation, migration and the circulation of goods and people (key themes, especially in Italy where the far-right anti-migrant policies of the local Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister have created a chaotic situation without finding real and proper solutions).

So while previous exercises in building wrapping in Milan by Christo, who wrapped the monuments of Leonardo and Vittorio Emanuele in Piazza della Scala and Piazza del Duomo in the 1970s, were used as a critique of consumption, the second skin created by Mahama around Porta Venezia weaves in the fabric of the city a new narrative that revolves around stories of global tensions

*Ibrahim Mahama, Liberty Please No Enter by Police, Kanda 37, Accra, Ghana, 2015, installation view. Courtesy the artist*

These themes are perfectly represented by the sacks: traded across Ghana, the jute sacks implicitly confront the notions of trade, labour, and export that connect Ghana and the rest of the world. Manufactured in Southeast Asia and imported into Ghana by produce buyers who use them to bag cocoa, beans, rice and coal, before distributing them to end-users all over the world, the sacks reference the history of Ghana’s political and financial economies, but they also hint at markets as places of inequalities and labour exploitation, while commenting on the effects of globalisation.

*Ibrahim Mahama, Affordable Housing Project, No Stopping No Parking No Loading. Asokore Mampong Kumasi 2006 – 2016, Kumasi, Ghana, 2016, installation view. Courtesy the artist*

So, while there are parallelisms between Mahama’s sacks and the American sacks used for distributing food supplies in Europe as part of the Marshall Plan after World War II that served as inspiration for Alberto Burri’s work, there are further meanings to discover behind these textiles.

***Ibrahim Mahama, Independence Hall, No Stopping No Parking No Loading. K.N.U.S.T Kumasi, Kumasi, Ghana, 2016, installation view. Courtesy the artist***

The jute sacks are indeed marked with the names of various owners, so once integrated in Mahama’s installations they encapsulate personal narratives and become tangible proofs of intangible identities.

***Ibrahim Mahama, Fracture, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2016, installation view. Courtesy the artist***

“A Friend” is a symbol of conflict and drama inviting passers-by to go beyond the mere sacks and think about the personal narratives and identities of the owners and of the people who used them and sewn them together including migrants from urban and rural areas in search of work. There is indeed a metaphor between the sacks and the nomadic and uncertain existence of people without documents or rights who seem to be subjected to the same conditions of the sacks – they endlessly travel through ports, warehouses, markets and cities, their living conditions precarious, their future uncertain.

***Ibrahim Mahama, Silence between the lines, Ahenema Kokoben, Kumasi, Kumasi, Ghana, 2015, installation view. Courtesy the artist***

Mahama lives and works in Tamale and in 2019 was the youngest artist featured in the first Ghana Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, where he created a bunker-like space made out of the mesh used to smoke fish and filled it with references to Ghana’s history. Mahama has had multiple solo installations in Accra and Kumasi, as well as solo exhibitions in Dublin, Michigan, and at White Cube in London.

His work was shown during the 56th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in Italy All The World’s Futures curated by Okwui Enwezor in 2015.

As part of his contribution to the development of Africa through art, Mahama was named the 73rd most influential African by theafricareport.com in the list of 100 most influential Africans 2019/2020

Ibrahim art

Mahama’s works which are installed in both art spaces and public markets, draw attention to the global transportation of goods across borders.

In May 2022 White Cube presented Ibrahim Mahama’s Half of a Yellow Sun’ his first exhibition in Hong Kong and Greater China. Featuring a selection of new fabric paintings, in these works Mahama explores the history of materials, commerce, and cultural identity.

The exhibition title is drawn from the novel of the same name by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which focuses on the Nigerian-Biafran War in the late 1960s, while the individual works are inspired by the 1970s songs of Fela Kuti, the Pan-Africanist musician and political activist. For Mahama, this period of independence from colonial British rule across Africa has long been a source of inspiration. As the artist states: ‘this is an African story, with ideas of freedom beyond the chaos.’

According to White Cube The collaged sections of material in these works have been collected by Mahama over several years, through a process of exchanging new cloth for old from traders, mainly women, working in markets across Ghana.

Sources: Irenebrination.com, Vancouverbiennale, ocula.com/, White Cube