Leilah Babirye is a multidisciplinary artist whose sculptural practice transforms discarded and everyday materials into works addressing identity, sexuality, and human rights. Using debris gathered from the streets of New York, she carves, welds, burns, and assembles sculptures and masks that reclaim narratives around LGBTQI identity, drawing on African mask traditions and the visual language of blacksmithing. Her use of cast-off materials references the Luganda slur abasiyazi (“sugarcane husk”) and repositions what is rejected as resilient and sacred. Born in 1985 in Kampala, Uganda, Babirye studied at Makerere University and later relocated to New York after being publicly outed, receiving U.S. asylum in 2018. She lives and works in Brooklyn. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions with Gordon Robichaux, New York; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and was featured in the 60th Venice Biennale (2024). Her first U.S. solo museum exhibition opened at the de Young Museum in 2024.