yétúndé ọlágbajú (b. 1990) is a research-based artist, creative producer, and residency director living on Ohlone and Tataviam lands (Bay Area & Los Angeles, CA). Their work roots in a single question: What must we reckon with as we build a future, together?
With no set answers or expectations, ọlágbajú unravels intricate connections as a means of highlighting our interdependence. They are interested in how our familial, platonic, romantic, and ecological bonds are affected by what we confront in the reckoning.
Through their social practice they have co-founded and are a member of numerous artist and worker-led collectives, each with liberatory missions and values. An advocate for non-hierarchical working structures, they embrace shared leadership models that challenge white supremacy, by actively rejecting disposability and urgency — two of its guiding tenets.
They hold an MFA from Mills College and are the recipient of multiple awards including a YBCA 100 award and a Headlands Center for the Arts fellowship. They were a recent awardee of The Lightening Fund by LACE [Los Angeles, CA] and resident at Center for Afrofuturist Studies [Iowa City, IA]. They are a co-director and creative producer at Level Ground and began a year-long residency and commission at 500 Capp Street last winter.
image courtesy of Jacob Cruz- Rine
CV
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yétúndé ọlágbajú
yetunde.olagbaju@gmail.com
Education
2020 MFA, Sculpture, Performance & Film, Mills College, Oakland, CA
2012 BFA, Studio Art & Museum Studies, Beloit College, Beloit, WI
Awards & Acknowledgements
2024 Awardee, Lightening Fund, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA
2023 Awardee, 500 Capp Street A.I.R Award, San Francisco, CA
2023 Round II Finalist, Creative Capital Wild Futures, New York, NY
2022 Finalist, Access x ART Prize with ART x Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria
2020 Awardee, Svane Foundation Award, Svane Foundation, San Francisco, CA
2020 Awardee, Jay Defeo Award, Mills College, Oakland, CA
2019 Awardee, Murphy Cadogan Awards, San Francisco Arts Commission, SF, CA
2019 Fellow, Nancy Cook Award & Fellowship, Mills College, Oakland, CA
2018 Awardee, YBCA 100, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF, CA
2018 Awardee, Community Arts Grant, Zellerbach Family Foundation, San Francisco, CA
2018 Awardee, Lake Merritt Placekeeping Grant, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
Artist Residences
2023 - 24 500 Capp Street/David Ireland Foundation, San Francisco, CA
2023 The Center for Afrofuturist Studies, Iowa City, IA
2023 Open Studios Residency, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, ME
2022 ACRE Residency, 2022 Summer Sessions, Steuben, WI
2022 MQBMBQ @ Villa Lena, Spring Residency, Tuscany, Italy
2020-2021 Graduate Fellowship, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA
2020 Artist In Residence, The Space Program, San Francisco, CA
2018 Facebook Open Arts Residency, Facebook, Menlo Park, CA
2017 & 2018 SALTA: Dos Rios, Mendocino, CA
2017 World Wide West, Point Arena, CA
2016, 2020, & 2022 This Will Take Time, Oakland / Point Arena, CA
Solo Exhibitions
2022 HORIZON / you hold my shape, SOMArts, San Francisco, CA
2021 On Becoming a Star…, pt. 2 Gallery, Oakland, CA
2021 My Beauty is Mine, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA
2018 i gave myself space to go back...pt II, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
2017 give it to her when she’s decided she knew herself..., CTRL + SHFT, Oakland, CA
Selected Group Shows
2024 Life on Earth: Art and Ecofeminism, The Brick, Los Angeles, CA
2024 NOCTURNES, Personal Space Gallery, Vallejo, CA
2024 Saturn Gives Structure to the Dream, Superposition Gallery, New York, NY
2024 Moving Clouds, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA
2023 Transcending Physicality: The Essence of Place, San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francsico, CA
2023 Fight and Flight: Crafting a Bay Area Life, the Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA
2023 Black Venus, Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA
2022 Collective Arisings: The Insistence of Black Bay Area, Museum of Sonoma County, Sonoma, CA
2022 Be Here Now, MARS Gallery, International Festival of Photography, Windsor, Australia
2022 Tikkun: For the Cosmos, The Community, and Ourselves, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA
2022 Opacity / Transparency, Saint Joseph’s Art Society, San Francisco, CA
2021 (2020 Mills MFA Exhibition), Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
2021 Light & Shadow, Shelter In Place Gallery, Boston, MA
2021 Tarsal by Metatarsal, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA
2020 IN LIEU OF AN OCEAN (SEND FLOWERS), Time Based Art Festival, PICA, Portland, OR
2020 Ritual of Successions, Cult Exhibitions, San Francisco, CA
2019 Unruly Alliances, Royal Nonesuch Gallery, Oakland, CA
2019 The Glitch, Superposition Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2019 Summer Friends, Pt. 2 Gallery, Oakland, CA
2019 Queer California: Untold Stories, Oakland Museum of California,Oakland, CA
2019 Slippery Bodies, Flatland Projects, The Source Park, Hastings, East Sussex, UK
2019 Of Other Spaces, Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2018 Endless Editions 2018 Biennial: Optimism, EFA Project Space, New York, NY
2018 Super Radiance, The Nook Gallery, Inglewood, CA
Selected Collective Work & Community Engagement
2022 - present, Co-Director / Art Residency Director, Level Ground Co, Los Angeles, CA
2020 - present, Co-Founder / Creative Director, in flux collective, SF/Bay Area & LA, CA
2016 - 2023, Collective Member, nure collective, SF / Bay Area, CA
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2024 Panelist, 2024 Open Studios Residency, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, ME
2023 Panelist, Zoo Labs: FUND Grant, Zoo Labs / Center for Cultural Innovation, Bay Area, CA
2022 Juror, Alternative Exposure Round 16, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA
2022 Juror, The Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant, PAAM, Provincetown, MA
2020 - 2021 Artist Mentor, Root Division, San Francisco, CA
2020 Juror, Oakland Residency, This Will Take Time, Oakland, CA
2020 - 2021 Collective Member / Co-Founder, No Neutral Alliance, SF / Bay Area, CA
Selected Lectures, Panels, & Workshops
2022 For Edmonia: Experimental Honorings II, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
2021 For Edmonia: Experimental Honorings, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA
2021 Black in Rembrandt’s Time: Dutch and American Perspectives, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
2020 For Edmonia [Library & Altar], This Will Take Time, Oakland, CA
2020 MoAD From Home, Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA
2019 Artist Talk, Real Time & Space, Oakland, CA
2019 (un)Knowing, Visual Supply Company, Oakland, CA
2019 Black Cultural Production in America, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
2018 Living Room Light Exchange, San Francisco, CA
2018 On Performance: somatic significations artist talk, Pro Arts, Oakland, CA
2018 Performance: Over and Underground, Betti Ono Gallery, Oakland, CA
2017 Sights & Sounds, KALW, San Francisco, CA
Collections
KADIST (North American Collection), San Francisco, CA
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH