In 1962, Picelj initiated a series of his self-published “Edition a” art booklets, having released a total of seven publications up until 1964. Each issue of “Edition a” featured the work of one artist —mostly of a colleague whose work he admired.
In 1962, Picelj initiated a series of his self-published “Edition a” art booklets, having released a total of seven publications up until 1964. Each issue of “Edition a” featured the work of one artist —mostly of a colleague whose work he admired.
The OmenaArt Foundation supported the creation of Ibrahim Mahama’s work as part of the collaboration for the exhibition What Are Our Collective Dreams? Global Connections — Abandoned Friendships.
As part of the ongoing cooperation between OmenaArt Foundation and Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, the monumental work by Ibrahim Mahama was created, one of the most outstanding contemporary artists from Ghana. For the first time in Poland, the artist realised a large-scale site-specific work in the historic building of Zachęta. The installation is part of the exhibition What Are Our Collective Dreams? Global Connections — Abandoned Friendships.
The monumental installation Sika Asem (2013–2025), which tells the story of Ghana’s history, the shared experience of the colonial period and the memory of post-colonial times, was created with the support of OmenaArt Foundation. The spatial work, covering the stairs and walls of the historic stairwell, was made out of hundreds of jute sacks imported from Ghana, which originally served to transport coal, cocoa and agricultural products. By transforming them into a work of art, the artist gives them a second life and allows the Polish public to hear a story about the exploitation of natural resources, people’s labour and global commodity flows.
Ibrahim Mahama is one of the most interesting and most recognised contemporary Ghanaian artists, known for monumental installations made of repurposed jute sacks. He has participated in major art events around the world, such as documenta 14 (2017) and the Venice Biennale (2015, 2019), and his projects have been shown e.g. at the Whitechapel Gallery or on the building of the Barbican Centre in London. He is also the founder of educational and artistic institutions such as the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) and Red Clay Studio.
What Are Our Collective Dreams? Global Connections — Abandoned Friendships (17.10.2025–08.02.2026) tackles the topic of artistic relations and ideas of cultural cooperation, focusing on how these bonds are formed today in political, historical and social contexts. It is a story about shared dreams – about what unites us and what disintegrates in dialogues between cultures, about the passage of time, migrations, memory and forgetting. The large-scale work by Ibrahim Mahama, created especially for this space, refers to these issues, transforming the symbolic place of Zachęta into a reflection about history and the community of experience.
Curators: Taras Gembik, Joanna Kordjak, Antonina Stebur
More information about the exhibition.
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