Inside the stillness of Anand Warehouse at Mattancherry, something reverberates. Soundless, yet eloquent through the materials that constitute the immersive installation.
Weathered jute sacks and salvaged wooden chairs carry the weight of labour and trade, and the shadows of colonial extraction. It is a ‘Parliament of Ghosts’, as aptly titled by Ibrahim Mahama, the Ghanaian artist who became the first from the African continent to top ArtReview’s Power 100 list.
Ibrahim has transformed a room within Anand Warehouse — a godown from the colonial period — into a space for silent dialogue and an enveloping archive where objects function as historical records.
The walls are wrapped in used jute sacks, marked by faded stamps that trace shifting ownerships, cycles of grain and spice production, and the uneven histories of resource exploitation. The room has rows of cast-off chairs once used in public institutions.
TNIE speaks to Ibrahim, who was in Kochi recently as one of the prominent artists featured in the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.
We hear this is your first time here. What are your impressions of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale?
It is quite fantastic. Unlike biennales in other parts of the world, this one is very much connected to the people in the area. I have been following the Kochi Biennale for quite some years now, but never had a chance to visit India. So when I was invited, I thought, ‘Why not?’ And this is brilliant.
Another reason that cemented my decision to come here is that my heart is partially in India. When I was growing up, we used to watch Bollywood movies. They were popular in Ghana. Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan… all the Bollywood stars are known to everyone in my country. You would be surprised to know that many people who have never travelled outside Ghana can speak Hindi well.
Another important link is the materials I have been working with for the past 12 years. Many of them are sourced from India. So I felt it was a great opportunity to come here, to learn, investigate, and make some kind of contribution.
It has been fantastic so far because the Biennale team has done a great deal of work to bring many of the ideas together.
You mentioned materials sourced from India for your projects. Could you elaborate on that, and also tell us about your work at this Biennale?
My project is basically an installation — a room made up of jute bags hanging on the walls, with furniture such as chairs placed on platforms. It is an iteration of two works currently on view: one in Ghana, which is permanently part of my studio, and the other in London.
The jute bags I used to work with had to be imported from India. But when I came here, I realised that locally sourced jute sacks were entirely different. They have a history of their own.
Another thing that makes this installation special is that everything went through local hands. We worked with local women for all the sewing. The bags were hung with the help of the local team. We also conducted a series of workshops where we invited students from local universities. They helped us sew the materials together and repair much of the broken furniture we collected. These are now being used for workshops and performances.
By drawing on materials sourced locally, I have tried to reconfigure the spatial language of parliamentary settings, which traditionally depend on neoclassical architecture and nationalist symbols that project authority. In their place, I have used objects from Kochi’s second-hand markets, still bearing the subtle imprints of those who once used them.
This foregrounds both the visible and invisible weights of labour carried by workers who remain marginal to formal political processes, yet challenge and reshape the very spaces from which decisions are made.
How do you view the art scene in India?
I think there is certainly still a lot of work to be done. From my viewpoint, the availability of infrastructure is a key question. How do we build more institutions or renew existing ones? This is crucial if you want to build a strong ecosystem around art.
India has so many important old buildings and historic sites, but ultimately everything boils down to the artists. That’s why Kochi is important. It is hosting a biennale started by artists and run by artists. They are setting sensibilities. There is so much money in a G20 country like India, so why not invest more in culture?
Are the works of artists from the generation of, say, M F Husain different from those of today?
It’s a process. When I came here, I conducted several workshops with young people and tried to remind them that the time we live in is very different. We are not just making artworks to be hung on walls. Art carries social responsibility. It is a tool, almost like an archaeological tool.
Art is meant to challenge the premises of the world we live in. It has to spur change in the conditions that exist. Through art, we are meant to create new conditions that transform the world as we know it. Young artists should rethink what it means to be an artist today, and what contributions their work can bring to the world.
The older artists were fantastic — they were great — but the premises, aesthetics and politics under which art was made were very different from today. In our time, it is important that art ensures some level of justice.