Working with textiles, most of which are at the end of their recycling chain, is a central element in the work of Ibrahim Mahama. He became known to a wider audience in Germany through his wrapping of the gatehouses at documenta 14 in Kassel, the moated castle in Herne and, more recently, the former Galeria Kaufhof building in Osnabrück. He will present this project, his largest to date in #Europe, which is being realized in cooperation with the Kunsthalle Osnabrück and will be continued at the end of November with a symposium at the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art in Tamale (Ghana), in a short talk at Open Space.

The conversation with Anika Reineke will focus, among other things, on the history and current politics of textile production, trade and commodity routes in a local and global context. Chemnitz and Osnabrück were both shaped by their textile history. The processing of cheap cotton that came from the German colonies allowed Chemnitz to become the center of Saxony’s textile industry. Osnabrück had been an important center of linen production and the yarn and canvas trade since the Middle Ages, and later of the textile industry. A significant part of the region’s economic success was based on colonial exploitation, and Osnabrück linen was used as a means of exchange for prisoners from the coastal regions of Africa and to make clothing for forced laborers working on the plantations of the West Indies.

Note: The event will be held in English.