Inherited Beings: Kobina Adusah Unveils a Powerful New Ceramic Language at Gallery FUMI
19 February – 14 March 2026
Gallery FUMI, London
Gallery FUMI opens its 2026 programme with Inherited Beings, the highly anticipated first solo exhibition by rising Ghanaian ceramic artist Kobina Adusah. Running from 19 February to 14 March 2026, the exhibition introduces an extraordinary new body of work rooted in ancestry, material memory, and the living histories embedded within clay.
Alongside the exhibition, Gallery FUMI will present a curated selection of Adusah’s works at Collect 2026 at Somerset House, reinforcing the international momentum surrounding the artist.
Kobina Adusah / Protography: David Nana Opoku Ansah courtesy of Gallery FUMI
A New, Resonant Voice in Contemporary Ceramics
Kobina Adusah joins the Gallery FUMI roster as a multidisciplinary artist whose approach to clay is deeply shaped by personal lineage, cultural inheritance, and spiritual knowledge. Raised in a family where stories and skills were passed down through generations, Adusah views clay as a living medium: one capable of holding memory, ritual, and emotional weight.
For Adusah, clay is never inert. It is a witness:
to forgotten rituals
to ancestral presence
to the silent histories that shape identity
His work invites viewers into an intimate dialogue with material, gesture, and the timeless rhythms of craft.
“Clay, to me, is not inert. It breathes with ancestral weight… Each vessel I create is a dialogue not just between hand and material, but also between worlds.”
— Kobina Adusah
Kobina Adusah / Protography: David Nana Opoku Ansah courtesy of Gallery FUMI
The Concept Behind Inherited Beings
The exhibition centres on the idea that clay carries stories, not only in its material structure but in its symbolic and emotional capacity to store memory. Adusah’s vessels and sculptural forms operate as mediating objects between past and present, situating personal lineage within broader cultural histories.
Gestural markings, instinctive patterning, and expressive surfaces appear like inscriptions. These motifs echo spiritual knowledge and oral traditions, while purposely resisting fixed meaning. The result is a visual language that is both contemporary and deeply embedded in ancestral knowledge.
Kobina Adusah / Protography: David Nana Opoku Ansah courtesy of Gallery FUMI
Three Interwoven Series
Skins of the Inherited Forms (2026)
Comprising 15 distinct pieces, this series explores the “skins” we inherit, culturally, spiritually, and personally. Through layered surface patterns, Adusah captures the textures of identity and history, transforming clay into a tactile archive of experience.
Living Beings (2025)
This collection of four sculptural works places clay in a more anthropomorphic realm. These pieces appear to stand, lean, or breathe, as if animated by the weight of ancestral stories. They consider the ways memory continues to shape contemporary identity.
The Loutrophorus (2026)
Tall, elegant, and laden with symbolic resonance, The Loutrophorus demonstrates Adusah’s ability to reinterpret historically significant ceramic forms through a modern, intuitive lens. Its refined silhouette contrasts with its expressive surface, marrying tradition with contemporary craft.
Other key works, such as Woven Being (2025), show the artist’s ongoing expansion into larger sculptural formats, pushing the boundaries of scale and emotional presence.
Kobina Adusah ‘I Still Face You’ Protography: Penguins Egg Studio courtesy of Gallery FUMI
Clay as Archive, Clay as Witness
A central theme of Inherited Beings is the role of clay as a keeper of histories. Through his process, Adusah embraces the idea that clay absorbs and retains the marks, pressures, and energies that shape it.
In his hands, clay becomes:
a carrier of inherited knowledge
a vessel for cultural resilience
a site of transformation
a bridge between past and present
This perspective places Adusah in a powerful position within contemporary global craft, one that merges material intelligence, cultural thought, and sculptural innovation.
A Rapidly Rising International Career
Although still early in his journey, Adusah has already achieved international recognition. A graduate of Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, he was a finalist in the 2025 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, exhibiting work in Madrid at the Thyssen‑Bornemisza National Museum.
His work has also been shown in Munich, Kumasi, New York, and other global design centres, with an important inclusion in Design in West Africa: Unity in Multiplicity at Palais de Lomé from November 2025 to March 2026.
With Inherited Beings, Gallery FUMI introduces Adusah to London audiences at a pivotal moment in his expanding international presence.
Kobina Adusah ‘I Still Face You’ Protography: Penguins Egg Studio courtesy of Gallery FUMI
Why Inherited Beings Matters
This exhibition is significant not only for introducing a powerful new artist but also for its deeper reflection on how material and memory intertwine. Inherited Beings invites viewers to consider:
how the past endures within contemporary identity
how material can act as a vessel for ancestral knowledge
how traditional craft languages can be reimagined for the future
Adusah’s work stands at the intersection of sculpture, anthropology, spiritual inquiry, and design. His creations are not simply ceramic forms — they are living carriers of story, presence, and cultural resonance.
Exhibition Details
Inherited Beings
Kobina Adusah
19 February – 14 March 2026
Gallery FUMI
2–3 Hay Hill
London
W1J 6AS
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