Connecting Histories and Communities: Nurturing Wellbeing
Artist Ibrahim Mahama is a visionary and innovator. His exhibition Songs About Roses, currently at Fruitmarket Edinburgh, vividly illustrates the traumatic history of a nation, transforming it into a powerful form of storytelling. Mahama turns collective memory and loss into a narrative of liberation, offering healing opportunities to connect with Ghana's colonial history in ways that restore sovereignty, community and identity.
In connection with the theme of healing, we joined the Black and Ethnic Minority Advice Service (BEMAS) and the Fruitmarket to deliver a wellbeing workshop with the BEMAS carers group. This gathering centred around a visit to the Songs About Roses exhibition, creating a space for care, connection and shared reflection.
Our time together began with a journey into the history of Mahama’s exhibition, exploring how his practice forms a circular economy, providing community employment while also reclaiming and sharing colonial history. Our conversation flowed into our own experiences with repairing where we can, making things last, and finding hope in the act of preservation.
Ibrahim Mahama Exhibition, Songs About Roses
Fruitmarket Edinburgh
The carers shared treasured home remedies for hair oiling passed down from their grandmothers and the significance of traditions that reflect resilience and adaptation. These small acts of care and repair can symbolise the hope that things can get better.
Walking around the exhibition we reflected on how Mahama displays invoices and purchase orders alongside photographs of the re-enactment of work on the railways. The carers reflected on the original railway workers and their backbreaking labour in the heat and how recreating the life of the workers through dignified, paid employment honours their contributions and underscores the importance of community in acknowledging shared histories of struggle.
Invoices and purchase orders alongside photographs of the re-enactment of work on the railways.
Fruitmarket Edinburgh
This connection to the past is vividly experienced through the large-scale charcoal and ink drawings, sculptures and film that bring the materials, stories, and memories of the old Ghana railway to life. Being among a selection of these pieces right on top of the railway in Edinburgh in the Fruitmarket Warehouse sparked conversations about how we experience that history today.
A circular economy, providing community employment.
Fruitmarket Edinburgh
To round off our visit to the Songs About Roses exhibition we sat together for final reflections. The carers talked about the importance of having time and space to come together and how community and shared experience helps alleviate some of the isolation that can come with the role of caregiving.
This workshop, inspired by Ibrahim Mahama’s transformative work, offered a space for carers to nurture their wellbeing and they reminded us of the power of community and hope.
We look forward to continuing to work with the BEMAS team, carers and the Fruitmarket.
Ibrahim Mahama, Songs about Roses at Fruitmarket is on until 6 October 2024.
