Ibrahim Mahama at Fondazione Imago Mundi, Treviso

Ibrahim Mahama is among the 14 artists included in ‘Temporary Atlas: Cartographies of the Self in Today’s Art’, an exhibition that brings together works that question how the map is traditionally conceived. Acknowledging the existence of two maps – one that is objectively driven and one that is individually perceived – ‘Temporary Atlas’ is an attempt to identify the fleeting border between two extremes: cartographic and artistic.

 For his work in the show, Mahama has collaged lithographs portraying details from a silo onto historical records from his surroundings – an annual report from the Bank of Ghana, 1993, and various archival documentation. In Annual Report Series I (2021), a bank report showing a table of external debt is partially obscured by hexagonal rows from the ceiling of a silo, the pages of the report left open inside a fold-up desk. In Manifest I, II, III (2021), archival documents form three two-metre long surfaces onto which Mahama has superimposed a collage of bats and the rhythmic rows of the silo’s ceiling. Through his lyrical, topographical patterning, Mahama physically explores the effects of a nation’s struggle in the aftermath of colonial domination and its efforts to establish its independence.