Ghanaian artist and author Ibrahim Mahama has disclosed his inspiration in setting up the plane art gallery as part of his Savannah Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA) project.
He mentioned that the planes were interesting bodies of art and held lots of memories of people. He added that a lot of the kids in Tamale had not seen planes before and even when they did, it was distant from them.
“The planes were interesting in the sense that, they had been used for so long and also hold a lot of memories. A lot of these kids or people in the community, the closest they have seen a plane is in the sky,” he said to Akosua Hanson during the “Y Lounge” on Y 107.9 FM
He also mentioned that the plane art gallery was an idea he had for some years after seeing planes abandoned at the Kotoka International Airport in Ghana. He added that he approached the owners of the planes and bought them to Tamale to be transformed into classrooms for the gallery.
A couple of years ago, I had this idea and thought of taking these airplanes because I spent most of my time at the airports, especially Kotoka. I always saw these airplanes parked and said to myself why not buy these airplanes and take them to Tamale, so I found the owners, bought them and took them to Tamale, and made them classrooms to form the art gallery.
The Savannah Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA) is located in the Northern part of Ghana, set up by Ibrahim Mahama to imbibe the love for arts into his natives.
Ibrahim Mahama is a Ghanaian author and an artist of monumental installations born in 1987. He obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Sculpture in 2013 and a bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting in 2010 at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. He currently lives and works in Tamale, in the Northern part of Ghana, and has established a Plane Art Gallery with an abandoned plane.
By: Caleb Asante Annor
