To Have and to Hold: Zainabu Usman Yusuf

The Kaduna Fashion and Art Festival (KAFART) is back this year for its 6th overall edition and 1st edition as a biennial. The theme is “To Have and to Hold.” We had earlier spoken to the festival director, Ganiyat Sani, about what this edition promises. We spotlight some of the exhibiting artists and designers, asking them questions about their creative origins, their distinct interpretations of the theme, and how their heritage and local communities shape the narratives they choose to preserve against the threat of erasure.

Take us back to where your relationship with art began. What are your earliest memories of making, and who or what first made you feel that creating was something you could do, and perhaps needed to do?

Growing up, I was neither good at handwriting nor particularly gifted at creative activities. But even when I couldn’t make the things I admired, I was drawn to them. I could spend a long time looking at a work of art, wondering how it was made and appreciating the creativity behind it.

As I grew older and began watching pottery videos, I became fascinated by the transformation of clay. I watched how it was prepared, shaped and gradually turned into something beautiful and useful. Beyond the transformation itself, I was particularly drawn to the way artists used pottery to communicate ideas and tell stories through the pieces they created. I began to see clay as a language I, too, could learn to speak.

Finding a place to learn pottery in Kaduna, where I live, was difficult, but my determination kept me searching until I found somewhere to learn. The journey required consistency and dedication, and it was through that process that I began finding my own voice through clay.

This year’s theme, “To Have and to Hold,” asks what we choose to hold, what we let go, and the cost of holding on. When you first sat with those words, what did they stir in you, and how do they show up in the work you’re bringing to KAFART?

When I first encountered the theme, I thought about the cultural memories I have personally chosen to hold on to, especially those that are gradually being forgotten. One of them is Kalangu, the facial mark my late mother used to wear. There are so many aspects of Hausa culture that we risk losing when the people who carry these traditions are no longer here to tell their stories, especially when those stories are not documented for future generations.

I choose to hold on to these memories by giving them a place in my art.

The theme also made me think about the clay pot and the place it has occupied in our lives for generations. Pots have held our water, food and drinks, welcomed our guests and lived alongside our families. I began to imagine the pot as a member of the family, giving it a place as the fifth member, carrying traces of our identities, from our hairstyles, traditional marks and attire to our language and the architecture of our homes.

Through The Fifth Member, I am holding on to these cultural details and giving them a form that can be seen, questioned and remembered.

Tell us about the piece, or body of work, you’re exhibiting. What is the story behind it, and what do you hope someone feels or understands when they stand in front of it?

The Fifth Member explores the clay pot as more than a household object. I imagine it as a member of the family, carrying traces of the people and culture it lives alongside.

Drawing from Hausa and wider Northern Nigerian heritage, I have incorporated details such as traditional hairstyles, Kalangu, architectural forms, the allo (traditional writing slate) and the rawani (turban) into my pots. One of the pieces draws on the form of an allo, with a rawani-inspired element, while another incorporates Ajami, the writing of Hausa using Arabic script. These references allow the pots to carry elements of our identity, knowledge and ways of life.

I want people to look at a familiar clay pot differently, to see it not only as something that serves us but as something that can carry our stories, our identities and our memories. I hope that, standing before these works, people encounter something familiar, discover something new, or remember something they thought had been forgotten.

Take us through how your work comes to life, from the first spark of an idea to the moment you know it’s finished. Which materials, rituals or habits are essential to you, and is there anything about your process that would surprise people? 

For The Fifth Member, I sketched my ideas before bringing them to life in clay. I kept asking myself what a pot would look like if it were a member of a family and what details would give it that family’s identity.

An interaction with an artist who works with painting encouraged me to explore how another art form could influence my ceramic practice, particularly by sketching my ideas before working with clay. This became an opportunity to bring together more of my ideas and techniques across a body of work. I explored coiling, slab building, throwing and pinching, using different approaches to realise the forms I had imagined.

One experience that particularly shaped this exhibition was having some of my pieces crack during firing. At first, it was a challenge I had to find a way to resolve. But it also made me reflect more deeply on the meaning of The Fifth Member. I asked myself: if a member of my family had a broken bone or a dislocation, would I simply discard them and look for someone else to take their place? Or would I find a way to care for them and help them heal?

That question changed how I approached the damaged pieces. Rather than seeing the cracks as the end of their story, I chose to bring the pieces back together, repairing them and incorporating new details that made them even more beautiful than I had initially imagined.

In a way, the experience brought me closer to the heart of the exhibition. If these pots represent members of a family, then they, too, deserve the patience and care we give to something we value. The cracks did not have to mean the end of the work. They became part of its story.

KAFART asks what endures in the face of erasure and forgetting. Is there a story, tradition, skill or memory from your culture, family or community that you feel is at risk of being lost, and how does your work help you hold onto it?

Kalangu is a traditional facial mark worn by Hausa women, and my late mother used to have one. As she grew older, it faded, but I always loved looking at it and asking her questions. She would gladly tell me stories about it and how she came to have it.

After her death, I sometimes searched online for images of women wearing the mark, especially when I missed her. I wanted to see it again and understand it better. But I struggled to find information. My searches mostly led me to Kalangu, the talking drum, rather than the facial mark I remembered. I also asked younger members of my family about it, but none of them could tell me what it was.

That experience made me realise how easily a tradition can disappear from memory when it is no longer widely known or documented. I decided to archive Kalangu through my art, carving it boldly and intentionally into one of the pots in The Fifth Member so it could be seen, recognised and remembered.

For me, it is also a way of holding on to a part of my mother. I can no longer ask her those questions, but I can keep the memory alive through my work.

What does it mean to you to show your work at KAFART, and how has your community, your city and the way you grew up shaped the way you see and make?

As a ceramic artist from Northern Nigeria, I want pottery to be my voice, a way of sharing the cultural heritage I grew up around.

Many of the details I explore in my work are part of everyday life: the architecture of our homes, our hairstyles, traditional marks and the objects that shape our lives. Through The Fifth Member, I bring these details into clay, giving them a form that can travel beyond the communities where their stories began.

Showing my work at KAFART means having the opportunity to share these stories with a wider audience. I want people from Northern Nigeria to recognise something familiar, while those encountering these traditions for the first time can discover a part of our heritage. I want my work to speak even when I am not there to explain it, allowing people to experience something of Arewa culture through clay.

What is the work you haven’t made yet that excites you most, and what do you hope people carry with them after experiencing your work at KAFART?

I want to continue exploring cultural traditions and everyday practices that are gradually being forgotten. There are still many things I grew up seeing but never fully understood, and stories that younger generations may no longer recognise.

I hope to keep researching these traditions, listening to people’s stories and translating what I discover into clay. Over time, I imagine building a collection of work that gives these memories a physical form, allowing people to encounter them, ask questions and learn.

I want people to leave my work curious about the things they may have overlooked in their own cultures. I want these stories to remain visible, so that future generations can still ask questions, discover their meanings and remember them. Ultimately, I hope my work gives forgotten or overlooked traditions a place to live beyond the memories of those who first carried them.