LONDON.- This summer, the South London Gallery is presenting a solo exhibition Sacred Groves by British Nigerian artist Ranti Bam (b.1982, Lagos), in the Fire Station galleries.
Ranti Bam works across sculpture, performance, film and photography. Her ceramic practice is divided into two connected bodies of work, the Ifas and Abstract Vessels. The Ifas are large stoneware sculptures, created by Bam embracing wet clay against her body to form vessels that collapse, crack and fold. At the SLG she exhibits monumental new sculptures, her largest works to date, which are finished with a metallic glaze that reflects the body. Bam is interested in the rawness of the clay she works with, and connecting with the material enables her to connect back to the earth.
Bam views clay as a language and divining tool so her practice sits closer to ritual or ancestral vessel traditions than studio ceramics. In the studio, her works have spirits and function like votive offerings. The word “Ifa” in Yoruba means both ifá, a spiritual system of divination, and I –fàá, to hold something close. Her new body of work, Sacred Groves, continues this inquiry into space as holding.
As part of her SLG exhibition, Bam debuts a film produced in Ọṣun-Ọṣogbo, a sacred site of the Yoruba fertility goddess Osun. Sacred groves are sites of gathering and quiet presence, where what is felt by the believer carries more weight than what is seen. Made while on residency at Guest Artists Space Foundation in Lagos, the film tracks the river’s path and the impact of human activity on the landscape. The site is one of the last surviving sacred groves in the region due to stigma around the belief system, environmental changes and pressure on land use.
Bam says: “A grove exists in the in-between, neither fully inside nor exposed. It is a clearing, sheltered yet open to sky, a meeting place of human and divine. The grove becomes the body expanded into landscape, a place where intimacy can root and vulnerability is held. Protection does not contain; it creates the conditions to unfold.”
Inspired by textiles and language, the Abstract Vessels incorporate pattern and colour, both inside and outside. The works are constructed by hand through slab building, where pieces wrap around each other to form a skin. Bam pierces this skin by hand, revealing the glaze inside the body of the vessel. The act of rolling out the clay, puncturing and studding the surface with pattern, painting with slip glazes, and then firing combines all the elements she is drawn to – earth, air, fire and water.
Ranti Bam lives and works between Paris and Lagos. Bam has exhibited internationally including Anima, at James Cohan, New York (2024), Hard/Soft: Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Museum of Applied Arts, Austria, (2023), and Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2023). In June 2026, Bam will unveil her permanent public artwork for ‘Climate Clock’ curated by Alice Sharp, Invisible Dust for Oulu26 Finland, European Capital of Culture. Ranti Bam was invited to be the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia by Koyo Kouoh.
An exhibition of new paintings by Brazilian artist Paulo Nimer Pjota is on show in the Main Gallery during the same period, 1 May – 23 August 2026.
