The Barbican has debuted a new large-scale public art installation from Ghanaian-born artist Ibrahim Mahama. 

His site-specific piece Purple Hibiscus, named in reference to the 2003 novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is installed on the facade of the Barbican’s central Lakeside Terrace. It uses approximately 21,500 square feet of fuschia-hued cloth that contrasts dramatically with the rough concrete exterior and overcast London sky. 

Mahama created the piece in collaboration with artisans from his Red Clay Studio and Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art in the city of Tamale, Ghana. It references the site's past history as the epicenter of the "rag trade" in Central London before World War II. Together, both the piece and architecture serve as a metaphor for the "power of labor."

The artist describes: "It’s like doing plastic surgery, but this time, you require a soul that dwells within the body, which is immaterial to build on the physical material. Collecting the individual smocks from communities can be quite challenging but also opens up a portal of new formal aesthetics. Using the Alui Mahama sports stadium in Tamale as the primary studio space for the production of Purple Hibiscus allowed for us to organize the different layers of the work in ways we couldn’t have possibly imagined. The scale of the material forms needed some level of freedom, which the space gifted."

Shanay Jhaveri, the Head of Visual Arts at the Barbican, added: "At a time of increasing fracture and disharmony, Mahama, with this monumental site-specific artwork — the second in our newly launched commission series — will transform the Barbican’s iconic Lakeside into a site and space for the commemoration of community, intergenerational memory and solidarity, all achieved by the incredible capabilities and capacity of the human hand." 

Mahama is noted for his social practice and says central to this is the "conviction that Ghanaians, and all those outside of the exclusive environs of the art market, should have the opportunity to engage with art." 

The commission will remain on view until August 18th of this year.