Ibrahim Mahama’s new body of work consisting of a series of drawings, collages and notes comes from his research into the history/occupation of architecture within his practice. These gestures propose questions of the extension of life beyond the human into archival materials from post- independence era in Ghana to Bats.
‘Vali’ means to swallow in Dabgani while ‘Voli’ means the hole but to ‘va’ also means to collect from the earth and ‘vo’ to pull out. All towards a potential of life while exploring multiple singularities within artistic structures.
Mahama’s focus is on the bats occupying a 1960’s brutalist abandoned building he recently acquired and converted back into a public institution while making critical decisions to leave the dominant life form “bats” within the space as co-habitants. This ecological gesture opens up portals into a post human centric world addressing issues of occupation and the expansion of life. Ghosts, exhumed soil, notes, ideas and decayed plants take the center stage within this new body of work.
