Ibrahim Mahama's Sewing Machines Haunt Fondazione Giuliani

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama (b. 1987, Tamale) presents his first major solo exhibition in Rome at Fondazione Giuliani, featuring a site-specific large-scale installation of defunct sewing machines, photographs, drawings, and a virtual reality film. The centerpiece, 'Capital Corpses' (2014–2019), comprises dozens of obsolete sewing machines salvaged from factories built during Ghana's independence era that later collapsed. Mahama reanimates these 'dead' domestic objects by suspending them in a skeletal metal framework that exposes both their tops and motors, transforming them into a ghostly assembly line. The exhibition also includes 'The Parliament of Ghosts,' a VR film derived from a Manchester project where railway remnants from Ghana form a parliament for contemplation, and 'Maps of the Gold Coast,' archival British colonial maps of resource extraction zones. Mahama's practice explores the scars of labor, migration, and postcolonial decay, using jute sacks and industrial detritus as carriers of collective memory. The show marks his return to Rome after a group exhibition at Pastificio Cerere and follows his 2018 solo show at Galleria A Palazzo in Brescia. Mahama has participated in the Venice Biennale three times.