Ranti Bam's work with clay is an intimate form of personal and social exploration.
2023 year exhibited in Biennial Find out more
Having been raised across two continents, clay has become a way for her to give cohesive form to her complexities and fully inhabit the material and spiritual culture of both worlds.
Harnessing the extraordinary narrative and curative capacities of the material, Bam pushes clay to its limits to deliberately engage with the concepts of fragility and vulnerability.
She has come to observe her works function publicly as hearths around which an audience gathers in contemplation, meditation and discourse. The multiple dyads of the symbolic vessel continue to be of significance. Through these Bam explores the literal and the metaphorical; inside and outside, abstraction and figuration, light and dark, spirit and form.
The clay body, the vessel, vulnerability and fragility all engage with the semiotic aspects of the feminine and are important aspects of her work.
Liverpool Biennial 2023
Ifa (2021-2023)
Created especially for Our Lady and St Nicholas Church Gardens – the burial location of Liverpool’s first recorded Black resident and former slave, Abell (d.1717) – Ranti Bam offers a new meeting point for visitors to gather in mediation, contemplation, and discourse. Inspired by the profound curative and narrative powers of clay, Bam presents seven new sculptures from her ‘Ifa’ series (2021-23). Through an intimate and time-sensitive creation process, Bam explores themes around fragility and vulnerability, intimacy and care, feminine labour and strength. The artist proposes clay as a medium for understanding human’s inseparability from our environment. The title ‘Ifa’ references the Yoruba word ‘I-fàá’, meaning ‘to pull close’, as well as ‘Ifá’, the Yoruba system of divination – Yoruba
Created especially for Our Lady and St Nicholas Church Gardens – the burial location of Liverpool’s first recorded Black resident and former slave, Abell (d.1717) – Ranti Bam offers a new meeting point for visitors to gather in mediation, contemplation, and discourse. Inspired by the profound curative and narrative powers of clay, Bam presents seven new sculptures from her ‘Ifa’ series (2021-23). Through an intimate and time-sensitive creation process, Bam explores themes around fragility and vulnerability, intimacy and care, feminine labour and strength. The artist proposes clay as a medium for understanding human’s inseparability from our environment. The title ‘Ifa’ references the Yoruba word ‘I-fàá’, meaning ‘to pull close’, as well as ‘Ifá’, the Yoruba system of divination – Yoruba are one of the largest ethnic groups in Nigeria, concentrated in the southwestern part of the country. The sculpted stools, known as ‘Akpoti’ are integral to indigenous life and are used for rest, care, communication, and communal gatherings. Together, they seek to encourage rest, soothing and love. They act as an alter at which to honour memory and to thank our ancestors – a ritual commonly practiced in many African and global religions. Showing at St Nicholas Church Gardens: Ranti Bam
Ifa (2021-2023)
Showing at St Nicholas Church Gardens: Ranti Bam
