"Buried Beneath the Clay" with artist Adebunmi Gbadebo

Join us for an artist talk with Adebunmi Gbadebo to learn about her process and the inspiration behind her compelling work. Using Nigerian and Cameroonian coil-building techniques, Gbadebo works with clay excavated from the former plantation where her ancestors were enslaved, creating works that are memorials and monuments to her ancestors and the lives that they lived.  

Be sure to visit the Bowdoin College Museum of Art beforehand to see the recent acquisition Ellis Sanders, by Gbadebo, on view for a limited time in the ​Boyd Gallery. 

About the artist:

Adebunmi Gbadebo (b. 1992, Livingston, New Jersey) lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. She earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and holds a certification in Creative Place Keeping from the NJIT. Her practice is grounded in research and a deep engagement with history, material, and place.

Working across ceramics, sculpture and installation, Gbadebo uses historically and culturally significant materials such as indigo dye, human hair collected throughout the African diaspora and hand-dug soil from the grounds of the True Blue plantation in South Carolina. These materials cement an exploration of heritage, centering her family’s history of enslavement in the American South while drawing from traditional African pottery techniques connected to her Nigerian ancestry. Through this multidisciplinary approach, her work explores the relationships between land, matter, memory, and the archival record.

Gbadebo has been an Artist in Residence at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia and a recipient of the Pew Fellowship in the Arts. She has presented her work at numerous cultural and educational institutions, including the Museum of the African Diaspora and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Recent exhibitions include Watch out for the Ghosts at Nicola Vassell Gallery and Body Vessel Clay, at the Ford Foundation in New York, as well as group exhibitions internationally. Her work is held in major public collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, among others.

Bowdoin College is committed to providing an accessible and welcoming environment. Please contact the Events Office (events@bowdoin.edu or 207-725-3433) with any questions regarding the accessibility of this event and/or to request accommodations. Please note: some accommodations require advance notice and may require documentation of a disabling condition.

Image: (Left) Photo Credit: Tobias Truvillion, (Right) Adebunmi Gbadebo, Ellis Sanders, 2025, soil from True Blue Plantation, Carolina Gold Rice, Human Hair. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine. Museum Purchase, Jane H. and Charles E. Parker, Jr. Art Acquisition Fund. © Adebunmi Gbadebo. Courtesy of the artist and Nicola Vassell Gallery. Photography by Lance Brewer.

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