In “Remains,” Adebunmi Gbadebo uses indigo, rice paper, cotton, human hair, and ceramic creations to explore the plight of her ancestors, who were enslaved at the True Blue plantation in Fort Motte, South Carolina. The effect is powerful; ceramics made from the soil in which her ancestors are buried, on the plantation, are displayed along with architectural fragments from structures built by her ancestors’ forced labor.

“I’ve been dedicated to exploring materials, like rice, indigo and cotton, whose origins as commodities were born of violence and enslavement,” the artist says. “My newest work is even more intimate and personal: I have crafted ceramic vessels from the very land that was once cleared by my ancestors as a way to commemorate what they endured and as a way to activate the land, using it and shaping it. The making of the work has been a practice of healing and a practice of care for their memories and what remains of their physical bodies, it’s in the soil.”