Ibrahim Mahama Reconstructs Abandoned Ghanaian Glass Factory At Fondation Cartier

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Artist Ibrahim Mahama is presenting“Le Temps des Récoltes” (“The Harvest Season”), his first major exhibition in Paris, at the Fondation Cartier. The show features a reconstruction of a Ghanaian glass bottle factory that was abandoned in the 1990s and acquired by Mahama in 2024, alongside a circular tiered installation of Ashanti stools titled Parliament of Ghosts.

Mahama, born in Tamale, northern Ghana, in 1987, is known for his installations incorporating used jute cocoa sacks that explore themes of trade, industry, migration, and globalization. The reconstructed glass factory, which originally opened in 1966, was among the last industrial projects of Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, whose government was overthrown by a coup in the same year. It continued to produce bottles for over five decades before its closure in the late 1990s.

“When I was a child, my mother used to have a small shop in front of the house,” Mahama said.“All the Coca-Cola we drank, the bottles were made in this glass factory, in a town called Aboso, in the Western Region.” After its abandonment, the factory site became overgrown with plants emerging from residual chemicals. Mahama acquired the site, transporting materials like glass shards, old bottles, metal scraps, and clay molds to his 100-acre Red Clay outdoor studio in northern Ghana. There, these materials were transformed into both an artwork and a community learning space.

The exhibition's catalogue states that Things Fall Apart, named after Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel, reimagines ruins as active sites and memory as a tool for reconstruction. The installation at the Jean Nouvel-designed Fondation Cartier features rusted steel roof beams and thousands of green bottles lining the walls, accompanied by a neon sign reading“Glass Manufacturing.”

Mahama used commission funds from the Fondation Cartier to support this project, reflecting on how“we exercise artistic responsibility in a different sense,” and how“we can save a very important specific moment, and carry it on to the future in a very different way.” Another work, Season of Migration to the North ( 2025–26 ), refers to the factory's dormant period, with thousands of green cola bottles forming a“lawn” and clay pots from the abandoned site clustered on the ground.

The Parliament of Ghosts installation features stools sourced in Ghana, evoking the plundering of Ashanti regalia during the 19th-century wars with Britain. Mahama noted that many of these objects, including thousands at Berlin's Humboldt Forum, are now in European collections, while“children in Ghana, Congo, and elsewhere grow old without ever seeing them.” Live music, including performances by Ghanaian seperewa master Osei Korankye during opening week and free concerts on the first Friday evening of each month, will accompany the installation.

The show also includes Ghana Mann Papapaaaa ( 2023–24 ), a charcoal drawing on archival documents, honoring one of Mahama's professors at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi. Other featured artists include photographer James Barnor, Courage Dzidula Kpodo of Postbox Ghana, German-Ghanaian artist Zohra Opoku, and Slovenian artist Tjaša Rener. Feda Wardak, a French-Afghan artist, also contributes work examining the legacy of the Afghan war. Dorothy Akpene Amenuke, Mahama's former KNUST teacher, showcases How Far How Near ( 2012 ), a tapestry of jute and mirrors. Painter Gideon Appah, born in Accra in 1987 and also a KNUST alumnus, presents his“Roxy” series, including Roxy 2 ( 2020-21 ).

We previously reported:

Ibrahim Mahama will open his most ambitious exhibition,“The Harvest Season,” at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, while continuing to build Ghana's art

Source: Artnet News

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