Ibrahim Mahama: Garden of Scars

Specially for Oude Kerk Amsterdam, Ibrahim Mahama created the monumental installation Garden of Scars. The installation is composed of casts and rubbings of the Oude Kerk’s gravestones and of the floors and walls of (Dutch) forts along the Ghanaian coast, such as Fort Elmina, one of West Africa’s oldest European buildings. Mahama brings together the physical traces that history has left in these buildings. The fractures, scratches and cracks in the sculptures represent a history of failure and repair. The work grapples with many of the questions that dominate our social, cultural and historical discourse today. Mahama makes visible a shared history in sculptures and drawings as fragile as they are robust.

Ibrahim Mahama (Tamale, 1987) has become an internationally respected artist in recent years. His large scale works highlight important issues of our time, such as the cultural and social effects of global migration, international trade networks and (post)colonialism. This is Mahama’s first solo commission in the Netherlands. 

Walking through the Garden of Scars is a journey both through Ghana’s history and the past of the thousands of Amsterdam citizens buried in the church over the centuries. Gravestones make up the 3000 square-metre floor area of the Oude Kerk. Mahama considers the gravestones in the Oude Kerk as a form of collective memory, and questions the social and political aspects of its formation. He connects the family histories of the merchants, captains and mayors buried in the Oude Kerk with the traces of history in the ancient forts along Ghana’s coast, where people lived through colonial trade and its consequences in Africa.

The castles and forts were built on the West African coast from the fifteenth century onwards by European traders, including the Dutch. Fort Elmina, for example, initially served the gold trade and significally contributed to the transatlantic slave trade’s development. Mahama wants to make visible this shared history by showing the global networks that were and still are connected to both places. ‘I think we should also look to the future. And art is a tool for that,’ says Mahama. 

About Ibrahim Mahama
Ibrahim Mahama lives and works between Accra and Tamale, Ghana. Mahama studied painting and sculpture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. During his university years, he embarked on a series of interventions and activities that interrogated globalization, labour and the circulation of goods, with works also created through a series of collaborations with Ghanaian citizens. In 2019, he established the Savannah Centre of Contemporary Art in Tamale, which includes workshops for schoolchildren and exhibitions by Ghanaian artists. In 2020, he opened the Red Clay Studio complex, which provides exhibition spaces, research facilities and artist residencies. He received the Prince Claus Fund’s 2020 Grand Prize, which is awarded biennially to people who use culture to promote development in their country. Numerous international exhibitions have featured Mahama’s work, including the 2015 and 2019 editions of the Venice Biennale, documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017), Biennale of Sydney (2020).

Artistic Director: Mariette Dölle
Curator: Marianna van der Zwaag

December 8 artist talk
In collaboration with the Prince Claus Fund, the Oude Kerk is hosting an Artist Talk by Ibrahim Mahama at the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. Mahama will elaborate on the background to his new installation for the Oude Kerk and will talk about his artistic practice and his commitment to the development of culture in Ghana. 

About Oude Kerk Amsterdam
Oude Kerk is a national monument and a place for contemporary art in the oldest building in Amsterdam, in the middle of the historic city center. Commissioned by Oude Kerk, artists create monumental new work specially for the place. The art installations explore the acoustics of the building, play with the perception of the space or illuminate stories from the centuries-old history of the place in new ways. Recent commissions: Antonio Obá (2022), Susan Philipsz (2021), Aimée Zito Lema (2021), Adrian Villar Rojas (2019). Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller (2018).