Strange Clay: Magdalene Odundo on unlocking the secrets of clay

Magdalene Odundo is a renowned Kenyan-born British ceramic artist whose work can be found in the collections of the National Museum of African Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum.

She is also one of the 23 international artists who featured in the Hayward Gallery exhibition, Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art. The first large-scale group exhibition in the UK to explore how contemporary artists have used clay in unexpected ways, it ran from 26 October 2022 to 8 January 2023.

In this intimate video, filmed at her Surrey studio, Odundo tells us about how she first became a ceramicist and what drew her to work with clay. She also touches on the universality of ceramics, the uniqueness of vessels, and historic significance of clay as a medium.

‘The notion that ceramics and pottery has this universality, more than any other art form, is one that pleases me a lot’

Magdalene Odundo