Adebunmi Gbadebo: Exploration of Heritage

Gbadebo's use of materials centers on her family history of enslavement in the American South, while her ceramics draw inspiration from traditional African pottery techniques, calling on her Nigerian ancestry. Fueled by research and a commitment to the archival record, Gbadebo's multidisciplinary approach investigates the complex relationships between land, matter, and memory.Grounded in historically and culturally significant materials such as indigo dye, human hair collected throughout the African diaspora and soil hand-dug from the True Blue plantation grounds in South Carolina, Gbadebo's practice is an exploration of heritage.

She lives and works in Philadelphia. She received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and a certification in Creative Place Keeping at The New Jersey Institute of Technology. 

In 2023, she was the recipient of the Maxwell and Hanrahan Craft Fellowship and the Keynote speaker for the American Ceramic Circle annual conference. In 2022, she was a Pew Fellow at the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

She has exhibited her work across the US and internationally in Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.