As part of Singapore Art Week 2026, The Pierre Lorinet Collection presents Digging Stars, the first solo exhibition in Southeast Asia by Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama, widely regarded as one of the most consequential voices in contemporary art today. Opening from 16 January to 8 February 2026 at Gillman Barracks, the exhibition marks a significant moment both for Mahama’s practice and for Singapore’s evolving contemporary art landscape, bringing his materially driven, historically attentive work into dialogue with audiences in the region.
Mahama is internationally known for transforming discarded materials such as jute sacks, shoeboxes, scrap metal, and tarpaulins into monumental installations and assemblages. His practice approaches material as a living archive shaped by labour, circulation, and migration. These materials, often marked by multiple hands and long journeys across borders, carry embedded histories of trade, colonial extraction, and uneven global economies. In Digging Stars, Mahama presents a new suite of fabric-based works, collages, photographs, and video, tracing Ghana’s material legacies of colonialism, post-colonialism, and industrialisation. Through acts of collection and assemblage, he repositions ordinary and discarded matter as witnesses to marginalised histories, prompting reflection on how sites and materials hold social and political memory.
Curated by Clémentine de la Féronnière and Francesca Migliorati, and presented by The Pierre Lorinet Collection under the curatorial direction of Edward Mitterrand, Digging Stars features 23 artworks, including eight new works shown publicly for the first time. Among them is SOYA YOOYA (2019), a work composed of scrap metal tarpaulin layered over charcoal jute sacks, exemplifying Mahama’s ability to fuse material presence with historical resonance. The exhibition continues The Pierre Lorinet Collection’s commitment to presenting thought-provoking contemporary practices that engage urgent cultural and social questions through both conceptual and material innovation.
The Singapore presentation follows a landmark year for Mahama on the global stage. Last month, he was named number one on ArtReview’s Power 100, becoming the first artist from the African continent to top the influential annual ranking. In December 2025, he also received the Gold Award in the Established Artist category at the inaugural Art Basel Awards. These recognitions acknowledge not only the ambition and scale of his artistic practice but also his broader impact beyond the exhibition space, particularly his sustained investment in education, infrastructure, and cultural exchange.
Indeed, Mahama’s influence extends deeply into institutional and pedagogical realms. He is the founder of the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) and Red Clay Studio in Tamale, Ghana, as well as the Nkrumah Volini project, initiatives dedicated to fostering artistic research, interdisciplinary learning, and international exchange. This commitment situates his practice as one that operates both critically and structurally, engaging global art systems while actively building alternative frameworks of support and knowledge production on the African continent.
Speaking on the presentation, collector Pierre Lorinet emphasised the broader ambitions of the project: “It is a privilege to support Ibrahim Mahama’s presentation in Singapore, which spans not only a major solo exhibition but also thoughtful public programming and cross-regional dialogue. His work speaks powerfully to shared histories of trade, migration and resilience, and I hope this platform will spark meaningful exchange between audiences in Singapore and beyond.” Organised by Art Outreach Singapore, the exhibition also includes free public art tours designed to deepen audience engagement with Mahama’s work and its contexts.
Running daily from 11am to 7pm with free admission and no registration required, Digging Stars invites visitors to reconsider the political and social lives of materials that circulate through everyday global systems. As Mahama’s first solo exhibition in Singapore and Southeast Asia, the show not only underscores his growing international prominence but also reinforces the region’s role as an important site for contemporary conversations around materiality, history, and global interconnection.
