Ibrahim Ahmed’s work emerges from research into how structures of power relate to histories of peoples and objects. Working with formats such as photography, mixed media, and sculpture, he engages with colonial legacies across Kuwait, Bahrain, and Egypt. His recent practice draws from personal archives, mostly photographs taken by his father over the course of fifty years, which serve as an entry point for him to rethink the kind of discourse created around identities and perpetuated by social expectations. His work for Forgive Us Our Trespasses / Vergib uns unsere Schuld, taken from the series I never revealed myself to them (2016–ongoing), is an exploration of masculinity and how it intersects with questions of fluid gender identities. In the series, he experiments with techniques involving cutting, layering, fragmenting, and reconstructing images as a way to approach modes of perception—both in the act of alteration and in confronting the politics that are inextricable from notions of visibility and invisibility. quickly but carefully cross to the other side #10 (2020) is a collage of fragmented pictures from both personal and public interactions, blurring the boundaries between the personal and the political by superimposing images from different contexts onto the same image. Through collaged cut-out faces and images exploring both personal moments, such as family gatherings and professional office settings, #10 contemplates the way bodies take up or are left out of spaces in an attempt to deconstruct presence and absence as separate concepts.

Works in the exhibiton: All from the series I never revealed myself to them (2016–ongoing): quickly but carefully cross to the other side #10 (2020), photo collage, 68 × 97.7 cm; quickly but carefully cross to the other side #20 (2022), photo collage, 69.4 × 70 cm; quickly but carefully cross to the other side #19 (2022), photo collage, 60 × 72.6 cm. Courtesy of TINTERA Gallery