SF/Arts Curator Insight

The de Young presents Lailah Babirye: We Have A History as the first US monographic exhibition of artist Leilah Babirye’s ceramic and wood sculptures. Highly expressive in nature, Babirye’s sculptural process borrows from ceramic and wood-carving traditions from Western and central Africa. Born in Kampala, Uganda, Babirye hand builds her ceramics sculptures using these reclaimed traditional modes, firing them with expressive glazes, while for her woodworks she whittles, scorches, and burnishes. As a final touch, she adorns them with wire, bicycle chains, inner tubes, and other found metals and materials. From traditional busts to masks to talismans, Babirye’s work always returns to portraits of her community, an expressive personal exploration of LGBTQ+ identity as well as wide spanning historical and cultural traditions of Western and central Africa.