Body Vessel Clay brings together three generations of groundbreaking Black women artists whose work with clay explores the medium’s multilayered cultural and political significance. Featuring over fifty works across ceramics, film, photography, and archives, the exhibition draws connections between the legacy of renowned Nigerian potter Ladi Dosei Kwali (1925-1984) and contemporary artistic practice. Through these lines of influence and innovation, the show traces how Black women artists have transformed the field of ceramics over the past seventy years—disrupting conventions, challenging hierarchies, and expanding the possibilities of clay as a medium.

Following critical acclaim at Two Temple Place in London and York Art Gallery in 2022, this landmark exhibition makes its U.S. debut on the centenary of Kwali’s birth, honoring her powerful work’s deep and broad influence over time and place. Curated by Dr. Jareh Das, this iteration of the exhibition features new works and includes three U.S.-based artists: Adebunmi Gbadebo, Simone Leigh, and Anina Major. It challenges dominant narratives in ceramics history by celebrating matrilineal, Indigenous African pottery techniques and clay’s enduring presence as both an artistic and functional form of expression. Dr. Das’s revelatory curation will immerse visitors in a contemplative space for reflecting on the layered histories of ceramics and the radical potentials of form, gesture, and the material memory of clay. The transformative qualities of the featured works become amplified in conversation with each other across generations, redefining and pushing the boundaries of ceramics.

The Ford Foundation Gallery is pleased to present Body Vessel Clay: Black Women, Ceramics & Contemporary Art, opening on September 10th with a celebration from 5 to 7 p.m.

*Image: William Alfred Ismay (W. A. Ismay). Photograph of Ladi Kwali at a pottery demonstration in England. 1970s. York Museums Trust. The W. A. Ismay Bequest, 2001. Photo: W. A. Ismay, © York Museums Trust.