Ibrahim Mahama Rebuilds a Bottle Factory Inside Fondation Cartier, Paris

A reconstructed bottle plant stands among the installations in Ibrahim Mahama's exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, a show that examines Ghana before and after colonial rule. The presentation opens with Parliament of Ghosts, a circular structure of Asante stools where visitors may sit. Mahama's subject matter spans the 1966 collapse of the Ghanaian government, when a military coup ended the post-colonial project's promise, and the older Ghanaian empires that fell centuries earlier. The artist works from the industrial detritus, corporate waste and discarded material of post-colonial Ghana, and the exhibition is framed around hope rather than ruin alone. The factory reconstruction is one of several large-scale works filling the Paris venue. The show is on view at the Fondation Cartier in Paris.