Xanthe Sommers

Xanthe Somers is a contemporary Zimbabwean ceramic sculptor whose practice playfully yet fiercely dismantles the colonial legacies, extraction economies, and gendered labor dynamics embedded within everyday material culture. Born in 1992 in Harare, Somers trained in Fine Art at the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art before earning an MA in Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy from Goldsmiths, University of London. This academic foundation profoundly informs her subversion of the Christian-Colonial gaze and her investigation into what she calls the subtle treason of objects. Somers’ large-scale, monumental stoneware vessels manipulate familiar domestic shapes such as lamps, urns, and candlesticks, turning them completely on their heads. Using traditional hand-coiling methods, she builds bulbous, hyper-ornamented structures and then deliberately disrupts them. Their surfaces are punctured, woven, and draped in a riot of exuberant, brash glazes. This loud aesthetic deliberately mimics the cheap, tatty leftovers of Western overconsumption, juxtaposing joyful playfulness with barbed political commentary on eco-racism, fast fashion, and cheap labor in the Global South. A hallmark of her practice is the conceptual elevation of historically devalued craft practices. By physically weaving threads, cords, and loops directly into the clay, Somers bridges ceramic pottery with traditional Zimbabwean basket-making particularly techniques from the Binga region. This deliberate integration serves as a poignant metaphor for domesticity, social cohesion, and the invisible, uncompensated women's work that holds communities together. Celebrated globally, her work has been acquired by institutions like the Victoria and Albert Museum, and she was named a finalist for the prestigious Loewe Foundation Craft Prize. Ultimately, Somers transforms clay into a vehicle for political memory, challenging global audiences to rethink the history, value, and stability of the objects surrounding them.