From Kassel's historic Torwache in Germany to Accra's Malam Dodoo National Theatre in his home country of Ghana, artist Ibrahim Mahama has draped some massive buildings in his intriguing, tapestry-like artworks.
Often made in collaboration, his large-scale installations employ everyday materials gathered from urban environments — such as remnants of wood, shoeboxes and textiles — to comment on deeper social issues such as globalisation, migration, economic trade and labour.
Mahama has focused particularly on hessian sacks as his preferred medium, for their relevance to the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works.
Made in Southeast Asia, the sacks are imported to transport cocoa beans but many end up as multi-functional objects, used for both the transportation of food and commodities and for many daily chores around the home.
"You find different points of aesthetics within the surface of the sacks’ fabric," Mahama says. "I am interested in how crisis and failure are absorbed into this material with a strong reference to global transaction and how capitalist structures work."
