Welcome to Baney!

The name behind my last project, Baney Clay, is neither made up nor randomly chosen, but the name of the village where both my dad and the clay I have used come from.

Baney is a small town in Equatorial Guinea (EG), a small country in the Gulf of Guinea in Africa. EG comprises a continental part, Río Muni, surrounded by Gabon, Cameroon and the Atlantic Sea and five volcanic offshore islands: Bioko, Annobón, Corisco, Elobey Grande and Elobey Chico. Bioko, the largest island with a population of over 2,300, is where the capital of the country is, Malabo; as well as where Baney is located. 

As not that many people in Spain actually know, EG used to be a Spanish colony until they gained independence in 1968.

Geography class over. 
Back to the clay. 

Since I took up pottery almost seven years ago, I have developed different projects that focus on mixing (glazes for Los Noha or disciplines - like photography and clay - for El Balneario de Panticosa), revisiting traditional pottery shapes (such as Mediterranean ceramics for Los Pasados de Moda), making group compositions (on An Interpretation of the Way of Tea I or the Belchite Series) and also questioning what we understand as productive and worthy in capitalist societies (Brumas).

All those projects were tightly connected with who I am, as they were about my family, the places I grew up in, the history of my region in Spain (Aragón), or my own struggles as an individual in this capitalist word. They all are a bit of me. However, The Baney Clay: An Unearthed Identity project certainly is my most personal and intimate body of work to-date. 

It is the result of years of awakening as a brown woman in a predominately-white world; of years of feminist and art activism; and a more confident approach to making. 

It was daunting to make something so different from what I have been doing in the last couple of years, but I had to do it. I owed it to myself as well as to my parents, who had brought me the clay! Having grown up very detached from and also rather uninterested in my African roots and having been able to visit EG and Baney only once so far, this project is helping me to connect, grow and also somehow travel.

You have seen the pieces, you know all about my story and the concept behind the work, so now it is time for you to travel too.
Welcome to Baney!

And one last fact.

Bisila also isn’t a random name. Nuestra Señora de Bisila or Virgin Bisila is the Patron Saint of the Bioko Island. Thanks to her - the legend has it - babies started being born again at a time when the skies were grey, babies had been dying as women couldn’t breastfeed and doctors didn’t know how to solve the problem.

Most of these pictures where taken during our first family trip to EG in 2010.