For over a month now, children in Tamale, have seen airplanes been dragged on the streets of Tamale to a usual site. Many have wondered why? others just assume its a site for grounded aircraft. Well for Ibrahim Mahama, the founder of Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) in Tamale, its another vision of his efforts to improve and create more room and space for the development of art creation in Ghana
In the early part of 2016, the vision was to establish another place for artwork and dedicate the building at SSNIT to the only exhibition and that was around that same period he met Mr. Kofi Dawson, a renowned artist.
Narrating how they met, Mr. Ibrahim said they met while going to Nigeria to support a fellow Ghanaian artist who has been honored in Nigeria in 2015. The artist is one of the most celebrated artists and has been living and practicing his work in Nigeria.
He also made mention that the center will not just do an art exhibition but will include other fields. ‘’It is not just art but we will be doing an exhibition on architects and some musicians that have left a legacy not just in the field of art but also intellectuals as well who have made an impact in the way we think’’
Officially the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art was open on the 27th of May, 2018 with the spotlight on Kofi Dawson whose work were been exhibited. Mr. Ibrahim Mahama explained that the place is going to be used to celebrate artists.
‘’We will dedicate this place to Kofi Dawson and his generation and some of the generation that came after him from the 20th century for the contribution that they have made’’.
Ibrahim Mahama
Ibrahim Mahama’s architectural installations have already been seen in cities such as New York, Athens, and London – but now the 31-year-olds work is being shown in Ghana’s first-ever National Pavilion, at one of the most prestigious contemporary art exhibitions in the world, the Venice Biennale.
Ibrahim’s grand-scale installations can be years in the making because he often collaborates with local workers and uses salvaged materials which he carefully sources from Ghana, where he lives and works – materials like the jute sacks found in food markets, and which he’s become synonymous with.
