Ranti Bam
Ifa Bust, 2022

​​There is an increasing amount of discourse today around what it means to be an African in globalized capitals. How does the neo-liberal West engage with pluralities of past, present and future African identity? Bam’s work is an intimate form of this social exploration. Clay holds narrative and curative powers. It is malleable, fragile, erotic; clay remembers. Bam approaches the material for solace, for respite, for liberation. She embraces it, fulfilling a desire for intimacy and symbiosis – the Dutch word Huidhonger is the best descriptor she can conjure for the feeling. It means skin hunger: the feeling people develop when they are disconnected from one another.

In titling the sculptures Ifa, Bam signals their multiplicities. Ifa in Yoruba means both (ifá): divination and (I – fàá): to pull close. Maybe they are votive objects bringing one closer to the divine. As viewers, we are turned into witnesses to the performance of a ritual that has the artist transforming – a newfound willingness to share her intimate space – unadorned, raw, in process. It’s a very African act to invite us into the commune; but, it’s a universal act to invite us to be a community.