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Ọmọlará WilliamsMcCallister

@adornedbyo

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cultivating cultures of collective care
pronouns : Ọ * Love * Beloved

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Join us on 14th October 2026 for an Open Studio with current residents Ọmọlará Williams McCallister (@adornedbyo) and Kévin-Adémọ́lá Ṣàngósànyà (@aboynamedjane), who will share their practices and research developed during their residencies.⁠
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Guests are invited to explore Ọmọlará’s material, embodied and text-based research through artworks, a living archive and archival annotations developed over two months in residence. ⁠
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The session will also feature an interactive element, inviting guests to try some of the processes that shape Ọmọlará’s practice, including weaving on a portable loom, making a sheet of handmade paper and creating an archival annotation to be placed in a book in the G.A.S. Library and Picton Archive.⁠
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Kévin-Adémọ́lá’s presentation will feature an immersive installation combining cyanotypes on fabric and ceramic vessels, rooted in the aesthetics of Black Atlantic altars. Conceived at the G.A.S. Farm House in Ikiṣẹ, the works reflect Kévin-Adémọ́lá’s research into àṣẹ, a Yorùbá spiritual and philosophical concept.⁠
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The Open Studio will conclude with an opportunity for questions, discussion and exchange.⁠
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🔗 RSVP via the link in bio.⁠
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Ọmọlará’s residency is generously supported by the Terra Foundation for American Arts while Kévin-Adémọ́lá’s residency is supported by the Yinka Shonibare Foundation. ⁠
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#gasfoundation #openstudio #kevinademola #omolarawilliamsmccallister #residency⁠ by @adornedbyo

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4 days ago

What gift to be seen and celebrated with such care. Thanks to @alex___mar for writing a sensitive close read of this very personal body of work . Thanks to @burnaway for providing a platform for both my work and Alex’s writing. The piece depicted here, “Fishers of Men,” was the very first work of fine art that I ever made/ performed / installed / documented. I’m thankful to continue to have opportunities to show and share it!

It’s wild to see how much my life and work has changed since then and how much it has not.
I’m still weaving together foraged and found fibers to make art objects. Except now I weave my own fabrics and spin my own fibers. I have deeper levels of skill and autonomy and authorship over my narratives. This is evidenced both in the materiality of my work and in the material realities of my life.

At same time that I’m looking back, I’m looking forward. I am so incredibly excited for that works that I’ve been quietly making and contemplating. Looking forward to sharing those soon soon.

Thanks for being along for the journey:) link to the article in my bio by @adornedbyo

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6

a year ago

2020 A Year of Research & Reflection : ⁠⁠
October 2020 ( part 2 of 3) ⁠⁠
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revolved around embodied practice and embodied research. The pandemic created this condition where I was at home with myself in a controlled and stable environment with people who love and support me in the ways that I want to be loved and supported. That allowed me to deepen my relationship with my body.⁠⁠⁠
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In October 2020 I was building a sculptural piece for a group show that would open in November at Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art ( formerly know as Greater Reston Art Center). The piece “Noose Nap Flag” is part of an immersive installation that includes large scale video installation and an installation of hanging ropes and black compost. The video installation “ Where DO Monuments Go To Die?”, another new work made for this show, is of my hands tying and untying a noose. ⁠⁠⁠
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To complete “Noose Nap Flag” I had to tie over 7200 miniature nooses. One for each prison, jail, detention center, youth detention center, immigrant detention center, psych jail , youth jail, youth detention center and other carceral facility in the United States. My hands were already familiar with the knot from an earlier work, one that this new work directly references. That familiarity did not mean that I could escape the physical aches and pains that come with repeating the same motion over and over again 7200+ times. It did not help that this repetition took place in a fairly short window of time. This kind of repetition is what leads to stress or overuse injuries.⁠⁠⁠
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This body likes variety and novelty. The body is also an interconnected system. What impacts a part, impacts the whole. When I began to tie 400 - 600 nooses a day the pain from repetition didn’t just show up in my hands, my wrists, my fingers. The pain made itself felt in my arms, shoulders, back, chest, neck. The pain crept over to the left side of my body which began trying to compensate for my overuse of the right side.The pain made its way down into my hips and took up residence in...⁠⁠⁠
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...continue reading the text and images from this and other posts on the blog section of my website. Link in the bio.⁠⁠⁠ by @adornedbyo

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6 years ago

In 2015 my dad took me home with him to Nigeria. His uncle, my great uncle, had died. My great uncle, I learned, was a Big Man who had lived to a Big Age. We were going to attend the celebration of his long and prosperous life. The celebration was a huge multiple day affair. Think Mardi Gras but as a funeral, but also sometimes church because colonialism and christianity. And of course it is not that the funeral was like Mardi Gras, more Mardi Gras is a direct descendant of the kinds of Yoruba cultural practices that I was immersed in on this trip.
As a member of the family I had my clothes for each Celebration of Life event tailored from a different, specially designated cloth. And each outfit included a coordinated gele, a form of sculptural Yoruba headtie. The gele that I wore for this funeral was my introduction to aso oke (ah-show-oh-kay), an indigenous, handwoven yoruba textile. The most widely spread form of aso oke is as narrow, 4 - 6” strip woven bands of cloth that are sewn together seam to seam to make larger pieces of cloth.

In 2022 I started exploring strip weaving as a from of embodied research on yoruba culture. One of my research interests is: How do textiles function as identity markers within global Diasporic Black Vernacular Material, Visual and Embodied culture? Specifically how have the cultural function of Afro-Indigenous textiles been displaced by colonization and western commodification of Blackness?

In this piece I wove 100 yards (it’s double-sided) of cloth in 6” wide strips, sewed them together to make 12” wide bands of cloth. I pieced that cloth into this composition. The patterns and colors are based on west African strip weaving traditions, the piecing on Black quilting practices from the US south.

thank god i don’t look like what i been through
hand me down yarn, artist’s own moving blanket
72” x 80”
2023 by @adornedbyo

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14 hours ago

In 2022 I started exploring strip weaving as a from of embodied research on yoruba culture. One of my research interests is: How do textiles function as identity markers within global Diasporic Black Vernacular Material, Visual and Embodied culture? Specifically how have the cultural function of Afro-Indigenous textiles been displaced by colonization and western commodification of Blackness?

In this piece I wove 100 yards (it’s double-sided) of cloth in 6” wide strips, sewed them together to make 12” wide bands of cloth. I pieced that cloth into this composition. The patterns and colors are based on west African strip weaving traditions, the piecing on Black quilting practices from the US south.

thank god i don’t look like what i been through
hand me down yarn, artist’s own moving blanket
72” x 80”
2023 by @adornedbyo

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0

14 hours ago

In 2022 I started exploring strip weaving as a from of embodied research on yoruba cultureor more specifically on aso oke, an indigenous strip wove yoruba textile. One of my research interests is: How do textiles function as identity markers within global Diasporic Black Vernacular Material, Visual and Embodied culture? Specifically how have the cultural function of Afro-Indigenous textiles been displaced by colonization and western commodification of Blackness?

In this piece I wove 100 yards (it’s double-sided) of cloth in 6” wide strips, sewed them together to make 12” wide bands of cloth. I pieced that cloth into this composition. The patterns and colors are based on west African strip weaving traditions. The piecing takes inspiration from Black quilting practices from the US south, the Gees Bend Quilts live in my mind rent free 24/7, and I love that for me.

thank god i don’t look like what i been through
hand me down yarn, artist’s own moving blanket
72” x 80” by @adornedbyo

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0

14 hours ago

Since 2020 I’ve been on a mission to reclaim ancestral knowledge–skills, historical context, materials, relationships and tools–to build out an immersive installation. Weaving on the loom is one of those skills. This is a part of the first piece of cloth that I wove, by myself from start to finish after leaving weaving school.

...(Continued from last post)...

This school, like many others, has turned to public and private funding sources as a way to fill the financial gaps left by their declining student base. Those funding sources have been interested in diversifying not just bringing in younger wealthy white women, but also expanding access to craft across universes of identities. I got to attend the weaving intensive because of one such scholarship that was designated for Black folks.

Unfortunately, the craft education space that was hosting the weaving intensive was not prepared to host me as a self-advocating, boundary holding queer, Black, genderfluid, chronically ill and disabled person who uses pronouns from the Black Atlantic. When one of their regular, full price paying students had an issue with using pronouns other than she or he to refer to people–and also refused to respect my personal space–I stood my ground. No, it was not okay for her to come to my work space and disturb me (her workspace was in a completely different building and she was in a completely different class). No, it was not okay for her to call me whatever she felt comfortable with, again she was in a different class in a different space so there really wasn’t a need for her to call me anything. I was firm in my non-engagement with this person. She was pissed that I would not engage.

I had forewarned the craft school leaders that this is how I would respond when not if, WHEN) one of these situations occurred. The school was not prepared to deal with the fallout. The tension was too much for them. After only two weeks the tension had broken them, they asked me to leave because “ they could not be sure that anyone who came to their classes would not be a raging racist.” Somehow that lady got to stay.

cut from the same cloth
cotton yarn, safety pins
32" w x 48" h by @adornedbyo

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1

15 hours ago

Since 2020 I’ve been on a mission to reclaim ancestral knowledge–skills, historical context, materials, relationships and tools–to build out an immersive installation. Weaving on the loom is one of those skills. This is a part of the first piece of cloth that I wove, by myself from start to finish after leaving weaving school.

In this weaving, the left side has evenly tensioned warped threads that work with the weft to create a nice blanched weave. The right side has overly tensioned warp threads that snapped and broke as I wove the weft into the piece. During the weaving process I tried to repair the snapped warp ends by tying them back together or adding extensions or using safety pins to reinforce them. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. The result is a cloth that was woven at the same time, on the same loom, with the same materials, under seemingly consistent conditions. Yet one side came out even and the other did not.

I could have adjusted the warp on the loom to make all the cloth come out evenly. I could have changed the conditions so that all of the warp threads were evenly distributed and evenly tensioned. I decided to weave it as is because I felt that it represented the conditions under which I learned to weave.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to start my weaving journey with an 8 week intensive in Swedish Weaving. The school had historically served wealthy white women with considerable access to excess time and financial resources. More recently this craft schools and others have struggled with the realities that this greying population has remained quite insular, has hoarded their knowledge and is slowly dying. Which means that the crafts that they practiced and supported are also endangered... (Continued in next post)...

cut from the same cloth
cotton yarn, safety pins
32" w x 48" h by @adornedbyo

4

0

15 hours ago

Since 2020 I’ve been on a mission to reclaim ancestral knowledge–skills, historical context, materials, relationships and tools–to build out an immersive installation. Weaving on the loom is one of those skills. This is a part of the first piece of cloth that I wove, by myself from start to finish after leaving weaving school.

cut from the same cloth
cotton yarn, safety pins
32" w x 48" h by @adornedbyo

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0

15 hours ago

In my practice I explore social hierarchies in the US South (race, gender, ability, etc) and the conditions that create or subvert them. I make sculptures, installations, and performances that use Black aesthetic practices to offer experiences in which established social hierarchies or social norms are temporarily altered. I’m currently investigating the head adornment practices of Black women and femmes, primarily church hats and masquerades. Most head adornments serve a social function of conferring or communicating status. Construction hats or chef hats signal a specific status and social context as do crowns or wedding veils. By simply adding or removing a head adornment, a person is able to significantly shift the way they are read and received socially. The church hat was introduced to Black women in the US south in the period that immediately followed the abolition of slavery. Church missionaries from the north established social programs to teach Black people how to dress “respectably.” The idea was that if Black people adhered to the standards of white respectability then they would be treated with respect. The church hat designates the wearer as one who personifies the qualities of a respectable, Christian white woman. Someone who should be acknowledged, helped, protected, and admired. The masquerade, on the other hand, came with Black folks from West Africa to the Americas and West Indies. Masquerades are costumes that when worn transform the wearer into a vessel for the divine. The person who wears the masquerade, the masquerader, is understood to be not themselves but a vesself for the divine to fill and temporarily take on human form. Masquerades are thus treated with reverence, allowed space, admired and protected. Both genres of head adornment perform specific social functions that elevate the wearer’s social positions in established social hierarchies relative to those nearby.
(How) Can an image of a head adornment facilitate an experience for the viewer of the image in the same way
that the head adornment facilitates an experience for its wearer? How can an image play with social hierarchies? by @adornedbyo

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0

15 hours ago

In my practice I explore social hierarchies in the US South (race, gender, ability, etc) and the conditions that create or subvert them. I make sculptures, installations, and performances that use Black aesthetic practices to offer experiences in which established social hierarchies or social norms are temporarily altered. I’m currently investigating the head adornment practices of Black women and femmes, primarily church hats and masquerades. Most head adornments serve a social function of conferring or communicating status. Construction hats or chef hats signal a specific status and social context as do crowns or wedding veils. By simply adding or removing a head adornment, a person is able to significantly shift the way they are read and received socially. The church hat was introduced to Black women in the US south in the period that immediately followed the abolition of slavery. Church missionaries from the north established social programs to teach Black people how to dress “respectably.” The idea was that if Black people adhered to the standards of white respectability then they would be treated with respect. The church hat designates the wearer as one who personifies the qualities of a respectable, Christian white woman. Someone who should be acknowledged, helped, protected, and admired. The masquerade, on the other hand, came with Black folks from West Africa to the Americas and West Indies. Masquerades are costumes that when worn transform the wearer into a vessel for the divine. The person who wears the masquerade, the masquerader, is understood to be not themselves but a vesself for the divine to fill and temporarily take on human form. Masquerades are thus treated with reverence, allowed space, admired and protected. Both genres of head adornment perform specific social functions that elevate the wearer’s social positions in established social hierarchies relative to those nearby.
(How) Can an image of a head adornment facilitate an experience for the viewer of the image in the same way
that the head adornment facilitates an experience for its wearer? How can an image play with social hierarchies? by @adornedbyo

0

0

15 hours ago

An Easter Lily Crown
26” x 24”
2022

Recently, I found a new process of making images with the head adornment that I make. Rather than photographing with the intent to produce representational recordings that are documents of a head adornment, I am using photography as a form of creating an experience for the viewer. The resultant images are abstract drawings that prompt the viewer to question what they are seeing and leave room for multiple answers to emerge. In these drawings it is not necessary for the head adornment to be legible as such, only that the forms they make prompt sustained, closer reading and challenge the viewer to resist the urge to classify or dismiss them as only one thing. The images pull the viewer into a space of expanded possibility, in the same way that the head adornments pull their wearer into an expanded space of possibility. The images become a practice space for acknowledging and appreciating the value of something--or someone--without understanding what it is or who they are. by @adornedbyo

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17 hours ago