Museum Exhibition

Clay Has Memory: Creative Lineages from Africa

A multicolored clay sculpture made of various pieces. — Zizipho Poswa (born 1979, Mthatha, South Africa; active Cape Town, South Africa), *uNa’kaMzingisi (Mzingisi’s Mother)*, 2024. Glazed earthenware, 134.6 × 50.8 × 58.4 cm. Princeton University Art Museum (2025-123)

Princeton University Art Museum

Princeton, NJ 08544
USA

July 19, 2026–July 3, 2027

Members Preview Day
Clay Has Memory: Creative Lineages from Africa

July 18, 2026 | 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

Clay Has Memory examines the ways in which African and African Diasporic artists use clay to sustain creative legacies from Africa.

The exhibition brings together works by historical, modern, and contemporary artists who draw on and preserve intergenerational knowledge through their practices. Referencing the long history of ceramics in Africa, these artists harness the potential of craft traditions and the vitality of clay to establish new relationships to place and shared histories. Vanessa Agard-Jones, a scholar whose words have impacted many of the artists in the exhibition, writes, “Clay remembers from whence it came.” As the first exhibition to focus on African Diasporic artistic practices organized by the Princeton University Art Museum, Clay Has Memory foregrounds the techniques, memories, and innovations contained within ceramic vessels and sculpture and centers the contributions of ceramic artists—in particular the impact of women—in fostering connections across geographies and generations.

Curated by

Perrin Lathrop ,

Curator of African Art

Princeton University Art Museum

Exhibition Project Support

Clay Has Memory: Creative Lineages from Africa is made possible by leadership support from The Terra Foundation for American Art and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Additional support is provided by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; the Kathleen C. Sherrerd Program Fund for American Art; the Melanie and John Clarke Exhibition Fund; the Princeton University Humanities Council’s David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project; Princeton University’s Africa World Initiative, Department of African American Studies, and Graduate School–Access, Diversity and Inclusion; and the Virginia and Bagley Wright, Class of 1946, Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.

The accompanying publication is generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund and the Barr Ferree Foundation Fund for Publications, Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University.

Exhibitions at the Princeton University Art Museum are made possible by contributors to the Director’s Exhibition Fund: Allen R. Adler and Frances Beatty Adler, Len and Laura Berlik, John L. Cecil and Celia A. Felsher, Jeannie and Jitender Chopra, John and Susan Diekman, Donald and Martine E. Elefson, Barbara Essig, Luke Evnin and Deann Wright, William S. Fisher and Sakurako D. Fisher, Stacey Roth Goergen and Robert Goergen, Preston H. Haskell III, Robert and Lynn Johnston, Gene and Sueyun Locks, David and Catherine Loevner, Shelly and Tony Malkin, Edward E. Matthews, Dean and Jill Mitchell, Christopher E. Olofson, Anne C. Sherrerd, Preeti and Sanjay Swani, and Theodora D. Walton and William H. Walton III.

Additional support is provided by Tena and Chris Achen, Sarah Lee Elson, Christopher C. Forbes and Astrid Forbes, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Paul G. Haaga Jr. and Heather Sturt Haaga, Padmaja Kumari Parmar and Kush M. Parmar, Mark W. Stevens and Annalyn Martha Swan, Judy and Ed Stier, and Jonathan Lee Walton.