Adebunmi Gbadebo
In Memory of K Smalls died 19?? HFS, 2021
True Blue Cemetery soil, South Carolina Gold Rice
17 x 12.20 x1 2.20 in
“I’ve been dedicated to exploring materials, like rice, indigo and cotton, whose origins as commodities were born of violence and enslavement,” states Gbadebo. “My newest work is even more intimate and personal: I have crafted ceramic vessels from the very land that was once cleared by my ancestors as a way to commemorate what they endured and as a way to activate the land, using it and shaping it. The making of the work has been a practice of healing and a practice of care for their memories and what remains of their physical bodies, it’s in the soil.”