Adebunmi Gbadebo

Adebunmi Gbadebo (Ah-dae-bu-mee Bha-dae-bo) is a multimedia artist who uses culturally and historically imbued materials to investigate the complexities between land, memory, and matter on various sites of slavery. Born in New Jersey and based between Newark and Philadelphia, Gbadebo earned her BFA at the School of Visual Arts, NY. She serves as the Community Apprentice for the Harriet Tubman Monument Project where she supported the team in the ceramic tile and oral story workshops and programs connected to the public throughout the monument's development.

Adebunmi's work in ceramics was recently on exhibition in, Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, a show which predominantly exhibited the work of enslaved peoples, a first in the Met's history. The show will tour nationally. She is currently a 2022 Pew Fellow and Artist in Residence at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia. Gbadebo has been written about in notable publications, including the New York Times, Hyperallergic, Hypebeast, Brooklyn Rail, Forbes, and the American Craft Council magazine. Gbadebo has been broadcasted on BBC Newsday and has given talks at the Museum of the African Diaspora, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Newark Museum of Art. 

Gbadebo’s works are included in the permanent collection at The Newark Museum of Art, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the South Carolina State Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, amongst others. Gbadebo has presented in exhibitions across the  US and internationally in Asia and Europe and is currently working with students and faculty at Clemson University to create a sculpture that honors the 667 enslaved and Black laborers who transformed Fort Hill Plantation into Clemson University and whose unmarked burials were recently identified on the campus grounds.