The Lives and Legacies of Black Women Ceramicists

In this screening premiering a new documentary titled The Enduring Legacy of Ladi Kwali (2024) and accompanying panel discussion, an intergeneration of artists, scholars and filmmakers delve into the intriguing clay histories by Black women ceramicists that have been forgotten or overlooked. The recounting of the pottery lineage of the Ladi Dosei Kwali (1925–1984) from Kwali, FCT and Suleja, Nigeria; and Kouame Kakahá, who still lives and works in Tanou Sakassou, Ivory Coast, in this conversation and film screening, is a journey into the Indigenous influence, representation and ceramics histories by Black women ceramicists framed by Western interventions.  

During her two-year early career fellowship funded by Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Jareh conducted ongoing research on Ladi Dosei Kwali, focusing on post-colonial perspectives in Nigerian and British studio pottery. Kwali was a renowned Gwari potter who learned modern pottery techniques in Abuja (now Suleja) under British studio potter Michael Cardew's (1901–1983) direction. Her pieces feature geometric and abstract figurative decoration, effectively blending African and European influences. This Kwali-Cardew connection sheds light on the complex power dynamic between Africa and the West in ceramics. However, their interactions have often obscured the significance of centuries-old Gwari matrilineal pottery traditions.  

Jareh's unique perspective aims to explore the connection between Nigerian pottery and traditions of British studio pottery from the 1950s to the present, with a particular emphasis on uncovering the complex power dynamics between Africa and the West in ceramics. This research is an extension of Jareh's current curatorial work on Kwali highlighted in the 2022 exhibition Body Vessel Clay: Black Women, Ceramics and Contemporary Art. Jareh's work also builds on the extensive scholarship on Kwali-Cardew interactions explored by Dr Tanya Harrod in her book The Last Sane Man: Michael Cardew: Modern Pots, Colonialism, and Counterculture (2012). 

This new and ongoing research delves into the enduring legacy of Ladi Dosei Kwali, exploring the mysticism surrounding her final years and how she is remembered and historicised. By making comparisons between the UK and her hometown of Kwali, as well as her adopted home in Suleja, Niger State in Nigeria, Jareh aims to understand the historical and cultural impact of Kwali's work. To conduct this research, she has consulted archives on Kwali's legacy at the Craft Study Centre, York Museum Trust, National Archives of Nigeria in Kaduna and the Kwali family archives in Suleja, Nigeria. Additionally, she has created a documentary titled The Enduring Legacy of Ladi Kwali (2024), which provides insight into Kwali's life through newly recorded oral history interviews with family and community members in Northern Nigeria. 

The panel discussion, a collaborative exploration, considers Kwali's legacy alongside Kouame Kakahá, considering how these women emerged as individual stars who are celebrated as part of a tradition that was matrilineal and communal pottery through external Western interventions. 

Speaker biographies

Bisila Noha is a Spanish-Equatorial Guinean, London-based ceramic artist, researcher and writer. Her work aims to challenge Western views on art and craft, question what we understand as productive and worthy in capitalist societies and reflect upon the idea of home and oneness, pulled from personal experiences in different pottery communities. In 2020, Bisila developed her research project, Baney Clay: An Unearthed Identity, which is both an exploration of her own identity as a mixed-race Spanish woman and an opportunity to challenge the Western and colonialist views that have historically dominated the way we look at art, crafts and history. Upon reviewing her pieces,  she realised that her previous assumptions were wrong and that a woman was behind the inspiration for her two-legged vessels: the original authorship of Kouame Kakahá. Kakahá was born in Tanoh Sakassou in the Ivory Coast ca.1960 and, in 2023, Bisila went to find her after years of searching and processing conflicting information stating she was no longer alive.  

Ceramicist Isis Dove-Edwin developed a passion for clay, particularly the ceramic language of materiality, process and form. She is fascinated by its documentary power – everyday life, events and ideas can be captured in clay objects, which may be shared in their time through gift, exchange or exhibition, as well as into the future as kept or found archaeological objects. Isis’ family collected ceramics from the Abuja Pottery Centre, and she has argued for a reassessment of Kwali’s historicisation particularly in the context of some UK museum collections that have not considered her as the internationally acclaimed studio ceramicist into which she evolved in her own right, and the influence that she had on Cardew's style and studio pottery. 

Professor Ozioma Onuzulike, ceramics artist, poet and historian of African art and design, is an A.G. Leventis Postdoctoral Fellow of the Centre for African Studies, SOAS, University of London. He is also a recipient of the postdoctoral fellowship of the American Council of Learned Societies, under the African Humanities Programme (AHP), for his research on the history of modern ceramics in West Africa since the 1900s. 

Ozioma has exhibited and published widely in the field of West African modern and contemporary ceramic art. He is a professor of ceramics and African art history at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. 

Dr Jareh Das is an independent curator, writer and researcher who lives and works between West Africa and the UK. Her interest in global modern and contemporary art is cross-disciplinary yet filtered through the lens of performance art which informs both her academic and curatorial work. In 2022, Jareh curated Body Vessel Clay: Black Women, Ceramics and Contemporary Art held at Two Temple Place, London and York Art Gallery. The exhibition spanned seventy years of ceramics and explored how Black women artists have disrupted, questioned and reimagined clay. Jareh has held curatorial and editorial positions with Galerie Atiss Dakar; Pond Society, Shanghai; Deptford X, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough; Etemad Gallery, Dubai; Arts Catalyst, London; MVRDV, Rotterdam; and Camden Art Centre, London and has contributed to several print and online publications. 

Image caption: The Dr. Ladi Kwali Pottery Centre, Kwali, F.C.T,  Nigeria (c) Andrew Esiebo 

Information about event format and access

The event starts with a presentation lasting around 40mins, followed by Q&A and a free drinks reception. The event is hosted in our Lecture Room, which is up two flights of stairs (there is no lift). The talk will also be streamed online and recording published on our website.

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