WHAT

Ibahim Mahama’s first exhibition in Hong Kong and China, the exhibition features new fabric paintings, where the artist explores the history of materials, commerce, and cultural identity. The title is drawn from a novel by Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, referencing ideas of freedom. The collaged sections of material in these works are synonymous with African design and culture, and through their wearer also denote wealth, power, and influence in formal settings.

WHY

Not only does the artist use the transformation of materials to explore themes of commodity, migration, globalisation and economic exchange, but through them, he celebrates the diversity of national and pan-African identity in post-colonial Africa. Conceptually and visually, he weaves everything together and overlays different histories, cultural tropes, figurative and abstract forms as part of an ongoing investigation into the legacies of colonisation.