2022 SPECIAL PROJECT
RANTI BAM
SOWING SEEDS IN HEARTHLAND
Bam’s work with clay is an intuitive and intimate form of personal and social exploration. She sees clay in its natural unreinforced state, as an avatar of her body in the world. Through her practice she enjoys pushing this wondrous material to its limits, embracing all the possibilities it has to offer. Her works function publicly as ‘hearths’, vessels around which people gather in contemplation, meditation and discourse.
Responding to the fair’s theme Who Will Gather Under The Baobab Tree?, Bam’s performance “Sowing Seeds in Hearthland” explores the symbolic connection between her hearths and the Baobab tree - spaces that Africans have gathered around to share stories, harness wisdom and seek spiritual and material sustenance.
Her performance will act out the connection between humans and their environment, both of which are fragile yet resilient. Bam, along with a group of women will build unfired clay vessels filled with soil and seeds. From the disintegration of these forms, new crops will bloom. In the breaking down of the vessels, we are asked to consider how a relationship with nature can break down often violent mechanical and ideological structures, in order to facilitate new growth and healing.