Earlier this month, we had the pleasure of welcoming British-Nigerian artist Ranti Bam for a week-long residency at G.A.S. Foundation. Based in France, her work spans sculpture, installation, and performance. In her practice she works primarily with clay to explore holding, presence, and becoming through hand-built forms that carry both strength and vulnerability. Working with red and black clays, materials closely aligned with her African identity, she creates sculptural works that move between the figurative and the abstract. She was recently invited to the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia by the late Koyo Kouoh.
During her residency, Ranti divided her time between G.A.S. Lagos and the G.A.S. Farm House in Ikise. In Lagos, she conducted research in the G.A.S. Library and Picton Archive, and also traveled to Oshogbo as part of her wider inquiry. At the Farm House, she spent time reflecting on her relationship to land, material, and ancestry, exploring how the environment shapes both process and thought.
Into Hearthland, 2022. Photo: Andrew Eseibo.
What is the current focus of your creative practice?
I am currently preparing for my first institutional solo exhibition at the South London Gallery. This moment allows me to consolidate recent bodies of work, research and think more deeply about how my sculptural forms engage space, scale, and the material language of clay.
What drew you to apply for this residency and how do you think it will inform your wider practice?
I was drawn to the residency for its strong technical and intellectual infrastructure, as well as its grounding within Lagos. It offers a focused environment for research and reflection, which will allow me to expand the conceptual framework of my practice.
And What Remains, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist.
Can you give us an insight into how you hope to use the opportunity?
I plan to use the library in Lagos to support my ongoing research, while spending time at the G.A.S. Farm House to explore a more embodied connection to the land. Moving between these spaces will allow me to balance intellectual inquiry with material, informing both the conceptual and physical aspects of my work.
Ifa 4, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.
About Ranti Bam
Ranti Bam works primarily with clay. Her practice explores holding, presence, and becoming through hand-built forms that carry both strength and vulnerability. Working with red and black clays, materials that feel closely aligned with her African identity, she creates sculptural forms that move between the figurative and the abstract. The trace of touch remains visible, keeping the work grounded in the intimacy of making and the relationship between body and earth. At the heart of her practice is an exploration of scale and resonance: how what we hold on a micro level echoes on a macro level, how the small body is also the big body. Through clay, she reflects on memory, care, ancestry, and belonging, using sculpture as a space to consider how personal gestures connect to collective and cosmological worlds.
Photo of Ranti Bam. Photo: Kene Nwatu.
Ranti's residency was generously supported by South London Gallery.
