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Binta Ayofemi

2020 YBCA 100 Honoree

Visual artist Binta Ayofemi creates urban forms inspired by Black abstraction, transforming overlooked spaces through sound, movement, and material. Ayofemi’s first buildings as artwork, COMMONS, GUILD, and YARD open in 2021.

Ayofemi’s series GROUND is a sequence of reimagined Black storefronts, green spaces, and corner stores. Ayofemi’s activations of vacant lots and vacant buildings, from an urban meadow to a vacant building, suggest a state of mutability. Her artworks, including sound works, mirrors, and gardens, are experiences that mingle the senses, crossing the material and the immaterial.

Ayofemi shifts accepted narratives around urban voids, seemingly abandoned structures, and economic displacement, while limning notions of fugitivity, freedom, duration, and radical imagination.

Ayofemi’s work has been presented by the Kadist Art Foundation, SFMOMA, Southern Exposure, The Carpenter Center, The Wattis Institute, the Asian Art Museum, The New Museum’s New Inc, dOCUMENTA, the British Arts Council, and Chicago’s Rebuild Foundation.

More on YBCA for Binta Ayofemi


Public Programs

Interactive Studio Hours with the YBCA 10 Artists

November 18–20, 2021, 12–5 PM

Public Programs

Interactive Studio Hours with the YBCA 10 Artists

Saturday, October 16, 2021, 12–4:30 PM

Photo of Binta Ayofemi

“As a visual artist I really think that I’m most inspired by composers…In my practice, I try to take a few notes that you don’t normally recognize as being blended and create a new chord.”

Binta Ayofemi leads members of the YBCA 10, Creative 20, YBCA staff, and the public through a grounding exercise. October 16, 2021. Photographs by LexMex Art.

Binta Ayofemi leads members of the YBCA 10, Creative 20, YBCA staff, and the public through a grounding exercise. October 16, 2021. Photographs by LexMex Art.

Binta Ayofemi leads members of the YBCA 10, Creative 20, YBCA staff, and the public through a grounding exercise. October 16, 2021. Photographs by LexMex Art.

Binta Ayofemi leads members of the YBCA 10, Creative 20, YBCA staff, and the public through a grounding exercise. October 16, 2021. Photographs by LexMex Art.

Binta Ayofemi leads members of the YBCA 10, Creative 20, YBCA staff, and the public through a grounding exercise. October 16, 2021. Photographs by LexMex Art.

Binta Ayofemi leads members of the YBCA 10, Creative 20, YBCA staff, and the public through a grounding exercise. October 16, 2021. Photographs by LexMex Art.

Binta Ayofemi leads members of the YBCA 10, Creative 20, YBCA staff, and the public through a grounding exercise. October 16, 2021. Photographs by LexMex Art.

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