Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1982 Birmingham, England

Biography

Artist Grace Ndiritu was born to Kenyan parents in Birmingham, England in 1982 and grew up between there and Kenya, within a household focused on politics and humanitarianism. Since the age of 17, and following the death of her mother, who was a midwife and activist, Ndiritu has led a largely nomadic lifestyle, journeying, and living in various unconventional and secluded communities, and practicing as a Tibetan Buddhist. Ndiritu pursued her education in textile art, first at Winchester School of Art in England, where she obtained a BA (Hons) in 1998, and then at the De Ateliers in Amsterdam, where she graduated in 2000. Her mentors have included artists, Marlene Dumas, Steve McQueen, Tacita Dean, and Stan Douglas, with Dumas as a particularly formative influence. In 2012, Ndiritu made the decision to live in the city only when necessary, choosing instead to live in rural, alternative, and often spiritual communities. This life choice aligns with her exploration into nomadism and her ongoing studies in esoteric fields, such as shamanism. Her research has led her to diverse experiences, including stays in Thai and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, involvement in permaculture groups in New Zealand, living among forest communities in Argentina, participating in neo-tribal events, such as Nevada's Burning Man, engaging with the Osho Hare Krishna ashram in India, and immersing herself in the Findhorn New Age community in Scotland.

Her art practice is often political and activist-oriented, focusing on bringing non-rational methodologies into the museum, including yoga, meditation, shamanism, and esoteric practices. Since incorporating shamanism and meditation into her art in the 2000s, she has experienced both acceptance and mockery of her ideas. Her work also addresses themes of Blackness, ecology, community, and institutional critique, particularly in reimagining collections. Her oeuvre encompasses videos, textiles, photography, performances, paintings, mixed-media installations, interventions into architectural spaces, and research projects that inform her practice. In her performances she takes on the role of a shaman, her approach to video is ‘hand-crafted’ and she calls her painting method Post-Hippie Pop-Abstraction. Since 2010, Ndiritu has been compiling an extensive archive of images on the topic of creation and the Big Bang. Additionally, her writing serves to further communicate these concepts. A Meal for My Ancestors: Healing the Museum was her most significant shamanic performance yet. It took place in 2018 at Thalielab, Brussels and involved staff from the U.N., NATO, EU Parliament, activists, and refugees. A participant, motivated by the performance, authored a briefing paper on climate change and refugees, which was then published by the EU Parliament Research Services.

Ndiritu exhibits widely in the UK and internationally. The Healing Pavilion, her commission and exhibition at London’s Wellcome Collection (2022–3), aimed to foster dialogue on museums' future roles and to explore their colonial legacy via a redefinition of textiles and architecture. For this exhibition, Ndiritu created a Zen Buddhist-style ‘healing pavilion’ using timber from the controversial, recently dismantled Medicine Man gallery, a subject of long-standing debate over its representation of medical history. The exhibition also included Ndiritu's award-winning short film Black Beauty which earned the 2022 Film London Jarman Award. Running for 30 minutes, the film features an African fashion model (played by Aida Wellgaye) discussing poetry, environmental crisis, and colonialism's impact on Tierra del Fuego with writer Jorge Luis Borges (played by Emilio Linder). The following year, Ndiritu's 2023 public commission in Birmingham, Grief: A Love Letter, explored themes including death, motherhood, and the intricacies of race, class, and gender, underpinned by the writing of bell hooks (the pen name of American writer and activist, Gloria Jean Watkins).

As well as receiving numerous awards and residencies, Ndiritu also leads research projects. In 2018, she initiated COVERSLUT©, a fashion and economic research project that addresses race, gender, and class politics while integrating a ‘pay what you can’ economic model. The inaugural edition of the project was conducted in collaboration with Manoeuvre, an artist-run textile studio in Ghent, Belgium. In 2019, Ndiritu worked with museum directors, academics, activists, and artists in a meditation-focused reading session at Belgium’s contentious Africa Museum in Tervuren. This was a segment of the Everything Passes Except the Past conference, facilitated by the Goethe-Institut, focusing on the repatriation of objects and human remains from Europe to Congo. Grace Ndiritu lives a nomadic lifestyle and does not have a permanent location of residency. She is represented by Kate MacGarry in London. In the UK public domain her work is held in the British Council collection.

Related books

Ann Hoste et al, Grace Ndiritu: Healing the Museum (Berlin: Motto Books, 2023)
Jason Allen-Paisant et al, Grace Ndiritu: an Absolute River, exh. cat. (Birmingham: Royal College of Art/LUX, 2022)
Grace Ndiritu and Pieter Vermeulen, Being Together: a Manual for Living (Hasselt: KRIEG, 2021)
Jana J. Haeckel, ed., Everything Passes Except the Past (Brussels: Goethe-Institut and Sternberg Press, 2021)
Grace Ndiritu, Dissent without modification: the 1990s (Bergen: Bergen Kunsthall, 2021)
Brendan Wattenberg, ‘More Native than Tomorrow: Grace Ndiritu in Conversation with Brendan Wattenberg’, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Vol. 32, 2013, pp. 114-127.
Lynn Gumpert, ed., The Poetics of Cloth: African Textiles, Recent Art (New York: New York University, 2008)

Public collections

British Council

Related organisations

Winchester School of Art (student )

Selected exhibitions

Labour (solo exhibition), Kate MacGarry, London (2023)
Grief: A Love Letter (solo public commission), Birmingham (2023)
Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-Chia and Friends (group show), Kettles Yard, Cambridge (2023)
The Healing Pavilion (solo exhibition), Wellcome Collection, London (2022)
An Absolute River (solo exhibition), LUX, London (2022)
The Ark (solo exhibition), Bluecoat, Liverpool (2019)
Healing the Museum (solo performance), Goethe-Institut & Africa Museum, Tervuren (2019)
A Meal For My Ancestors: Healing the Museum (solo performance), Thalielab Art Foundation, Brussel (2018)
For a Shamanic Cinema (solo exhibition), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Grace Ndiritu]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Grace Ndiritu artist