Ibrahim Mahama’s aircrafts fly Tamale’s children closer to their dreams

Abdul-Latif Zakaria, 16 years, is one of the many children from nearby villages who spend time at Red Clay learning about planes and their arts.

Photo by Ernest Sarkitey.

“When I was finishing University, I asked myself; is it possible to come back here to build a studio that could inspire young people?” that was the question that Ibrahim Mahama put to himself when he was leaving the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology where he studied for his degree in Fine Arts.

To go with this work, he adds a series of jute sack paintings, taken from some of the bags that are used to cart cocoa- one of the country’s top exports- distiled into larger architectural showpieces

The morale of this work, according to Ibrahim, is to show how labour and commodities are moved around the world and how that could impact people and livelihoods.

It was in 2020, at the height of the covid-19 pandemic, that Mahama moved the planes he had gotten from his Swiss friend to Tamale

Five years before that, Mahama, now 35, earned a million dollars from the sale of his artwork, he decided to purchase some more jettisoned planes left on the tarmac of Tamale’s only airport

It is statistics like these that have impoverished communities like Jenna- a trend that could hopefully change if interventions like Red Clay succeed in building up the confidence of young people to be the best, they could possibly be by going and staying in school.