Adebummi Gbadebo Named as Participating Artist in 61st Venice Biennale
Adebummi Gbadebo Named as Participating Artist in 61st Venice Biennale
ARTIST NEWS
9 May, 2026
Adebunmi Gbadebo is one of the participating artists for In Minor Keys, the main exhibition at this year’s 61st Venice Biennale, curated by the team of the late curator Koyo Kouoh.
Adebunmi Gbadebo works with resonant materials to bring forward the lives of people who were enslaved in the American South. The red soil she uses to make clay is dug from burial plots at the True Blue plantation in South Carolina, the place where her ancestors were forced to labour. She mixes the clay by hand, reminiscent of the methods used by the Old Edgefield potters of South Carolina – a group of African American ceramicists who developed their craft despite the hurdles imposed by their enslavement – and uses a coil method rooted in Nigerian and Cameroonian traditions. She embeds rice in some of her vessels, and human hair and afro locs in others, to create what she describes as funerary objects meant to commemorate her family and restore the land. Screenprints and works on paper incorporating handmade inks and pigments sourced according to similar methods surround these precious objects, evoking the watery landscape around the plantation.
Learn more
RELATED NEWS
Reginald Sylvester’s Until Then has been selected as one of the top five art shows to visit during London Gallery Weekend…