Born in Tamale in 1987, Ibrahim Mahama creates large-scale installations, sculpture, photography and architectural interventions from materials marked by use. Stitched jute sacks, railway components, shoeshine boxes, blackboards and other discarded objects become carriers of labour, trade and collective memory. By moving these materials into museums and public space, Mahama examines the legacies of colonialism, post-independence development and economic exchange. His works often emerge through collaboration with artisans and local communities, making the production process part of their social and political meaning.
Mahama lives and works between Accra, Kumasi and Tamale, where he has developed cultural and educational spaces including the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art and Red Clay Studio. His recent projects extend this practice of material recovery and institution-building. In June 2026, MAPS Museum in Køge unveiled Labyrinths, a public commission made from reclaimed bricks drawn from historically significant Danish buildings and developed with more than one thousand local children and young people. The same month, Art Basel presented God of Small Things on Münsterplatz, connecting repurposed materials with questions of justice, infrastructure and the place of African art in global institutions. Across these projects, Mahama treats damaged or abandoned objects not as ruins, but as tools for imagining new civic relationships.