A Grain of Wheat

Ibrahim Mahama’s installation 'A Grain of Wheat' assembles upright original first aid stretchers, many dating from the Second World War, collected from a site near to a Refugee Camp in Athens. Found elements like maps collected from Ghana are collaged within the canvas of the stretchers referencing intersecting histories of human mobility, labour and suffering. Aromatic smoked fish papers sourced from West African smokehouses conjure visceral reactions. Materials carry the residues of past actions, holding and bearing the physical markers, smells and traces of the interconnected networks and industries they previously moved through, and the human lives touched and effected. The work forms a kind of sensory archive of life, labour, and loss.