IBRAHIM MAHAMA
b. 1987, GhanaIbrahim Mahama’s vast installations use materials connected to Ghana’s past and present to open a discussion about the intersectionality of memory, colonialist history, politics, global trade and commerce.
Early Years
Ibrahim Mahama was born in Tamale, Ghana, in 1987 and grew up in a large, polygamous family. He was sent to Catholic school in Accra. His father worked on roads and his grandfather lived in a car-repair shop. He studied at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, majoring in painting (although also studying sculpture), gaining his BFA in 2010, MFA in 2013 and PhD in 2015. He has talked about how the art professors encouraged their students to be inspired by studying in other departments—in addition, kąrî’kạchä seid’ou, his MFA and PhD supervisor, is a driving force behind a Marxist approach to teaching, changing the idea of art from a being a commodity to it being a gift.
Ibrahim Mahama: Artworks
On his profile page at White Cube, Ibrahim Mahama says: “I’m interested in the point where the relationship between the material and society, or the space it finds itself in, breaks down.” Mahama’s artistic practice begins with a material, object or piece of scrap connected with Ghana’s history that he has collected, observing the parts of it that he finds interesting. He started working with jute sacks while he was a graduate student, collaborating with sellers and migrant workers to create installations that draped spaces in the material and to explore the ways that trade and labour connect Ghana to the rest of the world. Jute sacks were used to carry cocoa, coal and other exports, and absorbed shape and smell.
- Perhaps the best known of Mahama’s jute installations was Out of Bounds, developed for the Venice Biennale in 2015. He clad an entire corridor at the Arsenale in sacks, asking visitors to consider the provenance of the materials used.
- As part of his 2024 show A Spell of Good Things, Mahama created a large installation using salvaged hospital beds and railway-carriage upholstery.
- Also in 2024, Purple Hibiscus transformed the Lakeside Terrace at the Barbican in London, working with hundreds of artisans from Tamale to create a piece made of massive pink and purple fabric panels embroidered with batakaris, robes worn by Ghanaian kings, passed down through families and underlining the importance of intergenerational knowledge.
- The large-scale 2026 installation Labyrinths, outside the Maps museum in Copenhagen, was created from bricks reclaimed from historically and culturally significant buildings in Denmark. Starting with the idea of material having memory, he worked with schoolchildren who made marks and drew pictures on the bricks.
Select Solo Exhibitions
- Parliament of Ghosts, Ibraaz Foundation, London Museum of Contemporary Art (2025)
- A Spell of Good Things, White Cube New York City (2024)
- Songs About Roses, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2024)
- Transfer(s), Kunsthalle Osnabrück (2023)
- Garden of Scars, Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2022)
- The memory of love, Frac des Pays de la Loire, Nantes (and Paris) (2022)
- Lazarus, White Cube Bermondsey, London (2021)
- 57 Forms of Liberty, The High Line, New York City (2021)
- In-Between the World and Dreams, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Abor, Michigan (2020)
- Living Grains, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome (2019)
- Labour of Many, Norval Foundation, Steenberg, Cape Town (2019)
- A straight line through the Carcass of History, 1918–1945, Daadgalerie, Berlin (2018)
- In Dependence, Apalazzo Gallery, Brescia (2018)
- Non-Orientable Nkansa, White Cube, Miami Design District, Miami (2017)
- Civil Occupation, Ellis King Gallery, Dublin (2014)
- Kawokudi, Accra (2013)
- Cannon Wax, Jamestown, Accra (2013)
- Trading Identities, MFA Block, Kumasi (2012)
- The colonised body, Kokomlemle, Accra (2011)
- Class and Identity, Knust, Kumasi (2010)
- Purity? Cultures of display, Bomso, Kumasi (2009)
Select Group Exhibitions
- For the time being, Kochi Biennale, Kerala (2025)
- Eternal [ Kalpa ], Thai Biennial, Phuket (2025)
- Hangzhou Biennale of Art and Technology, Hangzhou (2025)
- Imagining Black Diasporas: 21st Century Art and Poetics, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2024)
- Threads: Breathing Stories into Materials, Arnolfini gallery, Bristol (2023)
- Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023)
- Burning At The Edges, Longlati Foundation, Shanghai (2022)
- Afro-Atlantic Histories, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (and touring the US)
- NIRIN, Artspace and Cockatoo Island, 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020)
- Ghana Freedom, Ghana Pavilion, Arsenale, 58th Venice Biennale (2019)
- Black Consciousness, Torre Matarazzo, São Paulo (2018)
- Non-Orientable Nkansa, White Cube, Art Basel Unlimited (2017)
- Documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017)
- Cornfields in Accra, Museum of Science and Technology, Accra (2016)
- All the World’s Futures, Arsenale, 56th Venice Biennale (2015)
- Pangaea New Art from Africa and Latin America, Saatchi Gallery, London (2014)
Further Reading
- Ibrahim Mahama’s Instagram
- Artist profile at White Cube
- 2024 interview from The New York Times
- 2023 interview from Studio International
- ArtReview interview marking Ahama’s No 1 position on the Power 100 list
Ibrahim Mahama FAQs
How has Ibrahim Mahama helped arts education?
Ibrahim Mahama has used the proceeds of sales of his art to set up the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art and to design and build Red Clay, a community-focused art and education centre in Tamale, Ghana. Continuing his theme of using materials from Ghana’s past in his work, he repurposed old aircraft and railway carriages into classrooms and screening rooms. He also pays for children from rural schools to travel to Tamale.
What are Ibrahim Mahama’s influences?
Although Ibrahim Mahama’s work is influenced by colonial and trade history, in terms of artistic indluences, he told The New York Times in 2023 that while at art school he became aware of Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Smithson, as well as El Anatsui and Romuald Hazoumé.
Was Ibrahim Mahama assaulted?
In March 2026, Ibrahim Mahama and his family were driving back from mosque in Tamale when their car became stuck in traffic. Mahama alleged that officers from a special unit of Ghana’s police force dragged him from the vehicle and took him to a police station where they manhandled and beat him.
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