Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama takes over the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, place du Palais-Royal in Paris, from 22 October 2026 to 28 February 2027. Titled Le Temps des récoltes (Harvest Time), it is his first major exhibition in the French capital.
Born in Tamale in 1987, Mahama has worked since the 2010s on Ghana's colonial and post-colonial heritage. Since 2019 he has founded three art centres in Tamale, in the north of the country.
The exhibition returns to the political, cultural and social utopias of the African independence years of the 1950s and 1960s, and asks what futures they might still open. It is built as a cycle: sowing ideas, passing on knowledge, harvesting what collective effort produces.
Among the works, Parliament of Ghosts recreates a parliament chamber with traditional Ashanti wooden seats that visitors can sit on, and doubles as a stage for music, performance and debate. Things Fall Apart rebuilds a former Ghanaian glass-bottle factory, inaugurated in 1966, with its original materials. A textile installation will also cover the arcades of the building's façade.
Mahama shares the space with nine artists and collectives, including photographer James Barnor, Gideon Appah, Zohra Opoku, Postbox Ghana and the Congolese Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC). The exhibition is curated by Aby Gaye-Duparc.
