Ibrahim Mahama, one of the most influential multidisciplinary artists of his generation, has established himself on the international stage with his installations created from collected materials, archives, and fragments of industrial heritage, which he reactivates to shape new imaginaries.
Ibrahim Mahama's work explores the colonial and postcolonial legacies of Ghana. The issue of extractivism is central to this lecture and to his upcoming exhibition at the Fondation Cartier, entitled The Harvest Season. Drawing on his country's industrial and commercial history, he examines the circulation of goods, the transmission of craftsmanship and the preservation of heritage. His work also highlights political, social, and economic continuities and ruptures, with particular attention paid to infrastructure, traces of the past, and collective dynamics.
Beyond his artistic practice, Mahama has also played an important role in developing Ghana’s contemporary art scene. Since 2019, he has established several cultural and artistic spaces in Tamale, including the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA), Red Clay, and Nkrumah Volini, creating new spaces for artistic production, exchange, and learning in northern Ghana.
During this lecture, the artist reflects on his work and initiates a broader discussion on a major piece: The Parliament of Ghosts. This installation takes the form of both a parliamentary chamber and an agora, around which visitors are invited to sit. It embodies the artist's collective and vibrant practice, shaping the present by creating spaces of life and potential from reclaimed materials. As the artist writes: "It is from the past that we can unearth the potential of the future. The future is not something that simply 'exists' somewhere; it also lives in our memories, in the form of unfulfilled futures."
Ibrahim Mahama is the first African artist to top ArtReview’s Power 100. Living and working between Accra and Tamale, his practice is characterised by the use of reused urban material - remnants of wood, paper documents, jute sacks, shoeboxes, school blackboards and old doors - which he manipulates and transforms to explore themes such as the phenomenon of globalisation and migration and the trade in goods. As Mahama said ‘I am interested in how crisis and failure are absorbed into this material with a strong reference to global transactions and how capitalist structures work.”
Mahama’s work has been presented widely in major international institutions and exhibitions. Over the past decade, his work has been the subject of numerous institutional solo presentations, including his first solo exhibition in Vienna at Kunsthalle Wien (2025); Kunsthalle Bern (2025); Fruitmarket, Edinburgh (2024); Mönchehaus Museum Goslar (2024); and Palazzo Diedo, Venice (2024), in conjunction with the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. His recent and forthcoming group exhibitions and international presentations include A Necessary Fiction: Maps, Art, and Models of Our World, Saudi Ministry of Culture, Abbazia di San Gregorio, Venice, Italy (2026); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (2025); Zachęta - National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2025); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2025); TPB Biennial, Phuket (2025); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, North Macedonia (2025).
His public art commissions, site-specific installations, and other significant exhibitions include a temporary public commission at the Barbican Centre, London (2023–2024); the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2023); the 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023); Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2022); Frac des Pays de la Loire, Nantes (2022); the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2021); the High Line, New York (2021); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); the 58th and 56th Biennale Arte, Venice (2019 and 2015); In 2023, Mahama was appointed Artistic Director of the 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts.
He was named Principal Prince Claus Laureate in 2020, received the inaugural Sam Gilliam Award in 2024, and was honoured with the Gold Award in the Established Artist category at the inaugural Art Basel Awards in 2025.
In the same year, the Republic of Ghana granted him a diplomatic passport in recognition of his cultural contributions. Mahama is represented by APALAZZOGALLERY and White Cube.
Crédit photo : Ibrahim Mahama, Parliament of Ghosts, 2025, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India, 2025 © Courtesy of the Kochi Biennale Foundation
