Ndidi Ekubia on silver and her extraordinary, liquid-like vessels.

Material Matters with Grant Gibson

Ndidi Ekubia creates extraordinary, almost liquid-looking, vessels from silver. She graduated from the University of Wolverhampton in 1995, before going on to the Royal College of Art. Since then, her work has been shown internationally at exhibitions such as TEFAF in Maastricht, Masterpiece in London, and Pavilion of Art & Design in New York.

Her pieces are held in Winchester Cathedral, Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museum and The Asmolean Museum in Oxford.

Currently, she has a series of vessels in Mirror Mirror, a new exhibition at Chatsworth House that also contains furniture, lighting, ceramics, and sculpture from designers such as Fernando Laposse, Samuel Ross, Faye Toogood, and Ettore Sottsass.

Ndidi was awarded an MBE in 2017 for services to silversmithing.

In this episode we talk about: why she loves silver; the rhythm that lies behind her process; listening to the metal and trying not to ‘torture’ her material; silver’s memory; the importance of function; the African influence in her pieces; wanting to leave Manchester as a child but returning as an adult; her early love of Lowry; discovering metal as a student; having her work reassessed in the wake of Black Lives Matter; and her relationship with her gallery, Adrian Sassoon.
We are delighted that the headline sponsor for this series of the podcast – and the Material Matters fair – is the brilliant lighting specialist, Bert Frank.
For more details go to: bertfrank.co.uk

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