Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has emerged as one of the most influential figures in the contemporary art world for 2025, combining powerful artistic works with groundbreaking institution-building efforts in his home country. His latest piece, "The Physical Impossibility of Debt in the Mind of Something Living" (2025), created for his solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien, features a hollowed-out diesel locomotive originally purchased by Ghana from Germany and the UK through IMF loans for export transportation, positioned atop several thousand headpans—a traditional Ghanaian method of carrying goods.
This work exemplifies Mahama's signature approach of weaving together themes of capitalism and waste, colonialism and neocolonialism through repurposed industrial materials. Throughout his career, he has incorporated everything from textiles and shoemaker boxes to rusting hospital beds and large-scale infrastructure components into his sculptures and installations. His artistic practice transforms discarded materials into powerful symbols that reveal the ongoing inequalities embedded in global economic systems.
Mahama first gained international recognition for his innovative use of jute sacks and textile remnants—leftover cloth from Ghana's cocoa industry that was later repurposed to hold vegetables and coal. Working with teams of collaborators, he stitches these materials together to create oversized quilts that he drapes over buildings. These textile installations have transformed structures ranging from the former Food Distribution Corporation building in Accra to London's prestigious Barbican Centre. In 2025, he continued this practice by wrapping the exteriors of Kunsthalle Bern and MoCA Skopje, effectively disguising architecture while bringing industrial labor and history to the foreground.
The artist's global presence expanded further through his participation in November's Thailand Biennale in Phuket, where his work continued to explore themes of global interconnectedness. His solo exhibition at the new Ibraaz space in London served as a proposed meeting space, featuring chairs gathered from Ghanaian households arranged on a platform constructed from wood reclaimed from Ghana's colonial railway system. These exhibitions consistently demonstrate the connections between disparate locations, with materials serving as tangible traces of global trade routes and extractivist politics that continue to shape our interconnected world.
Mahama's aesthetic approach shares conceptual ground with influential artists including fellow Ghanaian El Anatsui, who has been a key influence on his work, as well as international artists like Subodh Gupta and Melvin Edwards. All of these artists share a common thread of transforming yesterday's discarded materials into potent symbols that illuminate today's persistent inequalities. However, what sets Mahama apart and secures his position at the top of this year's most influential list is his role as an institution maker who is actively reshaping how art functions in society.
Driven by questions about who truly benefits from Ghanaian labor, Mahama has extended his critical examination to the art market itself. This inquiry led to his decision to reinvest profits from his blue-chip art sales into establishing a series of institutions in his hometown of Tamale. These include the Red Clay Studio, the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA), and Nkrumah Volini, which function as open studios and production sites while hosting artist residencies, student projects, children's workshops, and exhibitions.
The impact of these institutions has been significant throughout 2025. SCCA hosted "The Writings on the Wall," a group exhibition curated by blaxTARLINES member Robin Riskin, and partnered with Michael Armitage's Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute for the collaborative exhibition "Notes on Friendship: Breaking Bread." The Red Clay Studio site is notably dotted with repurposed old planes now used as workshop spaces for students, alongside the train husks that frequently appear in Mahama's exhibitions, creating a unique educational environment that mirrors his artistic practice.
Mahama has consistently spoken about leveraging the inherent contradictions within his own art production and distribution system toward efforts of redistribution and community empowerment. His commitment to this philosophy continues with workshop-led projects scheduled for December's Kochi-Muziris Biennale and upcoming work at the MAPS museum in Køge, Denmark, alongside a forthcoming exhibition in Singapore. Through these diverse projects, Mahama persistently raises fundamental questions about what art accomplishes and who it serves, refusing to offer simple answers to complex problems.
Through his network of sites and activities, Mahama is pioneering a new model for the artist's role as a localized institution builder, arts educator, and community advocate. He strategically draws upon the resources and connections of the international art world to fuel—but not dictate or determine—alternative possibilities for what art might become. As traditional models of museums and galleries continue to face significant challenges, the potential for new forms of art support and distribution, whether as formal institutions or flexible community hubs, represents a crucial issue for both the present and near future that Mahama is actively helping to shape and define.
