Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has been honoured at a reception in Accra following his win of the 2026 Arnold Bode Prize, awarded by the City of Kassel. The evening was hosted at the German Residence by Germany’s ambassador to Ghana, Frederik Landshöft, and Lisa Landshöft, and drew members of Ghana’s art community as well as representatives of the DAAD and the Goethe-Institut.
A prize with documenta in its DNA
The prize was founded in 1980 and carries the name of Arnold Bode, the founder of documenta, the exhibition that turns Kassel into a world stage for contemporary art every five years. Mahama’s bond with the city goes back to documenta 14 in 2017, when he wrapped the historic Torwache gatehouses in stitched-together jute sacks, a work that also incorporated parts of old Henschel locomotives. Its title, Check Point Sekondi Loco. 1901–2030. 2016–2017, folded colonial railway history and an open future into a single label.
Materials that carry history
Mahama is known for monumental installations built from reclaimed material, above all used jute sacks and railway components. Through these worn, patched surfaces he addresses labour, migration, colonialism and global trade. At the reception the ambassador said what fascinated him most was how the artist gives objects from the past a new life, a new context and a new meaning.
Building at home
His links to Germany run deeper than Kassel: he held a DAAD Artists-in-Berlin fellowship in 2017 and exhibited at the daadgalerie in 2018. In Ghana, meanwhile, he has created spaces for younger artists in Tamale — the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art, Red Clay Studios and Nkrumah Volini — offering room for exhibitions, research, experiments and education. Landshöft stressed that cultural spaces outside the established centres let Ghanaian and African artists develop their own voices.
The evening closed with a conversation between Mahama and German artist Rebekka Macht about dialogue across cultural perspectives — a fitting coda for a prize that links Kassel to the wider world.