Often describing her work as auto-ethnographic, Simone Leigh places Black women at the center of her work. Monumental in scale, and actively asserting a presence that claims space, her work reflects on the lived realities of Black women, including their resistance, knowledge, power, and beauty. Leigh’s background in cultural studies and Black feminist theory as well as her interest in the vernacular traditions of the American South, the Caribbean, and Africa are evident in her work. Trained in complex sculpting techniques such as salt-fired stoneware and lost-wax casting, Leigh combines American ceramic techniques with those of African pottery, engendering new hybrid rela- tionships between traditions and aesthetics that live on in African Diasporas.

Jug draws inspiration from nineteenth-century face jugs made in the American South by enslaved and freed African American artisans in the Edgefield District of South Carolina, a region known for the production of stoneware. Leigh reimagines these jugs with forms resembling the sawtooth openings of cowrie shells. In the center of the room, a human figure made from clay and wearing a cowrie shell skirt asserts her presence. Both cowrie shells and jug vessels are sacred symbols. One of the world’s oldest forms of currency, cowrie shells are a significant recurring motif in Leigh’s practice. As a form of currency central to transatlantic slavery, they serve as a reminder of the trauma and exploitation. Cowrie shells are also used in divination amongst the Yoruba people of West Africa.

Nearby, a monumental tower made of raffia, a material found in tropical regions of Africa, recalls materials, architectural forms and thatched roofs of West African vernacular architecture. Untitled (after June Jordan) pays homage to poet, teacher and activist June Jordan, who after the 1964 riots collaborated with architect Buckminster Fuller to draft a proposal for the unrealized “Skyrise for Harlem.” Jordan’s writings on issues of gender, race, sexuality and global liberation struggles are at the heart of Black feminist studies