Xand caught up with Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama at the press preview for the unveiling of Purple Hibiscus, his site-specific commission at the Barbican’s Lakeside Terrace. The 2000 square metre artwork draped over the building’s facade was an awesome sight on a wet and windy April morning. Traditional Ghanaian textile meets Brutalist architecture. The piece was crafted with the help of hundreds of weavers from Tamale, Ghana and has traditional batakari robes embroidered into its colossal body.

“The work gets its title from Chimamanda Ngozi’s book Purple Hibiscus,” Ibrahim informs us after being probed about the inspiration behind the work.

“I came to London for discussions about the commission and was inspired by the great British weather,” he says with a wry smile. “I decided to produce a work that was very vibrant.”

“In Northern Ghana we have batakari robes which are worn by Ghanaian kings and traditionally woven. I have been collecting them for a number of years. I produced a couple of works featuring them and my next objective was a large-scale creation on a public facade. So the challenge was how to obtain such a large number of fabrics and produce the piece.”

“I sourced weavers in Northen Ghana to produce the fabric by hand and I specifically wanted hand-crafted work, not machine-made. I sought an aesthetic that was, in a way, post-industrial or post-machine. We took all the material to Ghana’s Tamale Sports Stadium and sewed everything by hand.”

And did the commission brief direct you to a dialogue with the Brutalist architecture or was that your own interjection?

“The commission sought a dialogue with the building’s Brutalist facade but also, signifcantly, this used to be a rag trade site before the Second World War. The site was levelled, but its history and legacy lives on. So, yes – a dialogue with the building’s facade and the site’s textile heritage.”

Ibrahim Mahama: Purple Hibiscus Wed 10 Apr —Sun 18 Aug 2024

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