Woah, please don't make me Sit down 'Cause I just got to Heaven Sit down Gonna walk around Sit down, servant, and rest a while, sit down”
The words vibrate through internal speakers. But they are singing to me. For I am standing amongst the voices of ancestors, whose prayers are answered through my existence.
The artwork in front of me is a glazed wood staircase that commands the centre of the gallery space. Two clay vessels rest on each wooden step. This moment feels similar to kneeling in church, surrounded by the hymns of a choir. The song playing is a collection of sounds from the True Blue Plantation and its descendants, “Sit Down Servant”, performed at a 2022 funeral service.
Their voices, now immortalised, dance around the walls of Artspace, Wolloomollo, carrying the weight of generations through an internal speaker.
A worker nearby shares a quiet reflection, acknowledging the transformative power of the artwork: "It’s amazing how the clay of all the ashes of the people that have passed away, which are used in her piece, has now been turned into a vessel holding her ancestors".
For in this space, art becomes more than mere expression—it becomes a witness to the complexities of history, a tangible manifestation of the prayers of all those who came before.
(Adebunmi Gbadebo incorporates hair as a material in her artwork. Photo by Neal Santos for Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.)
Adebunmi Gbadebo, born in 1992 in Livingston, New Jersey, is a visual artist known for her sculptures, paintings, prints, and paper creations, all crafted from human hair sourced from individuals of the African diaspora. Rejecting traditional artistic mediums, Gbadebo embraces hair as a means to centre her people and their histories within her art.
This year, her art is being showcased at the 24th Biennale of Sydney, that takes place from the 9th of March 2024 to the 10th of June 2024. Showcasing approximately 96 artists and collectives from across 50 countries and territories.
For Gbadebo, the process of curating her art installation of the two vessels, "Sam 2023" and "Adam 2023," and the staircase they are placed on, was deeply personal and special.
(Sam 2023 on the top step and Adam 2023 on the lower step. Photo taken by Danielle Osifo)
"Originally, I wanted the stairs to be made by my cousin Benny. My cousin Benny is a descendant of True Blue Plantation. He's the family member who is responsible for literally building bridges over waterways that are giving us access to the burial grounds. And he's also the relative who has built a lot of staircases. A lot of these burial grounds that my enslaved ancestors are buried on are on these hills, (...) and a lot of the descendants are older and elderly people. It's quite difficult for them to access the burial ground. So Benny has built staircases from the road to the burial grounds, which literally gives us access to our ancestors," she explains.
However, due to the costs, the staircase was built in Australia. Despite this, Gbadebo still wanted to honour Benny’s labour, which is physically evident in the land. This land is a space where many of her ancestors, including enslaved and newly emancipated ancestors, have built structures that have been knocked down, torn down, or burnt down, making it inaccessible.
The staircase supporting the two pieces was Gbadebo’s way of paying homage to Benny's labour and skills. She describes how her cousin Benny lives off the land, has brought back much of the plantation, and hunts for his own food.
“A lot of those traditions that you may see in Maroon communities (...) the people who have escaped slavery, and set up settlements, along the rivers, the ways in which they had to be self-sufficient and independent, and learn how to live off the land, cousin Benny embodies that. So the stairs are a nod to that, and I wanted to finish them in like a black stain (...) pointing back to black labour and black people.”
( Gbadebo uses rice as a way to honour her ancestors and history, with the staircase supporting the two pieces paying homage to Benny's labour and skills; photo by Danielle Osifo.)
In Gbadebo's work, black hair is a consistent material. She describes it as a vessel intertwined with another made from the land, symbolising the pivotal role of black people in shaping both history and land.
For many people, hair is such a sacred and spiritual thing. The process of combing your hair or getting a haircut at the barber can be so intimate and private. Gbadebo's experience as a Yoruba priest has helped her connect with the hair she uses,the spirituality and DNA of the people and lives it is attached to.
“One of the first things you do when you're initiated into this tradition is you get your hair shaved and you have to keep your head covered. So there's great importance put on your head. It's also considered as the kind of seat of your spirit, your Ori, your intuition that drives you through life so that you could reach your destiny.”
Gbadebo's commitment to creating this black archive through her artwork stands as a testimony of the continuous growth of black identity all over the world. Her art installation being showcased in Australia is significant to this day as black hair and black identity struggles to be seen on mainstream media.
Lola Egbenoma, a law student at the University of Macquarie, captures the significance of Gbadebo's work in challenging societal perceptions of Afro-textured hair. As she states, "I personally think it sends a much-needed message that Afro-textured hair, especially 4C, which has been historically demonised as being undesirable in white spaces, is also beautiful and something to be admired rather than criticised or looked down upon."
In fact the first natural hair discrimination case was in the 1976 case of Jenkins v. Blue Cross Mutual Hospital Insurance.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld a race discrimination lawsuit against an employer for bias against afros. The appeals court agreed that workers were entitled to wear afros under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Despite this, black hair has still been censored and manipulated to fit into a certain aesthetic since I canremember. This is evident in Chris Rock’s Good Hair documentary in 2003. He explores the economics of Black women’s hair care routines in which comedian Paul Mooney states “If your hair is relaxed, they are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they are not happy.”
“I really wanted to create like this avenue that we could see ourselves and it didn't have to always be a portrait. That our hair could be material, the land in which our ancestors lived could be material, the colour blue could be a material. I had a show in Bangladesh, and I couldn't verbally communicate with the audience because I didn't speak Bangla, but just through the colour blue. The people who were at the show, because of their history with indigo, and them being forced to work on indigo plantations through the British, were able to see themselves in my work, because of a colour.” Gbadebo shares.
When tackling sensitive historical topics through art, one often encounters both internal and external challenges.
The dangerous part of misrepresenting my work is that my work is very steeped in a real history and a history that is constantly being erased. And it's a vulnerable history. So I have had family members [say] like if you're going to do this work, if you're gonna represent this history, make sure you are representing its full truth. It could be something as simple as spelling Motte not Mott. To not have an E could be a difference in place, there’s multiple True Blue Plantations in South Carolina. So making sure to represent accurately where this True Blue is. So I think internally within my family there’s been criticism and people holding me to make sure this history is represented with all its integrity and honesty”.
Danielle Osifo is a third-year Media (Communications and Journalism) and Commerce (Marketing) student. She loves writing poetry and creating hyper-specific Spotify playlists. She has been featured in Australian Poetry, Unsweetened, and other literary journals. Danielle is currently crafting 'Indigo Sun,' her debut poetry book, and runs a blog called 'Offline Wonder.'
