Esma Mohamoud’s shea butter triptych, titled Gluttony, Gluttony, Gluttony, mobilizes a material prized as a moisturizer to shine light on the exploitation of child labor in Africa. Before sculpting with it, Mohamoud dries her ethically sourced shea butter until it takes on an ivory color. No longer useful as a beauty product, the material is transformed into reflections of the young African girls who harvest shea nuts in Africa. Sitting atop Italian marble plinths, these three busts are surrounded by 15,000 sculpted shea butter nuts, cast from real Ghanaian shea nuts. Ghana produces around 130,000 tons of shea butter per year. While the international companies that export the material make exorbitant profits, the women who harvest and process shea nuts are ruthlessly exploited, working long hours, largely during the rainy season, and typically earning the equivalent of about two dollars after a five-day work week. “It’s this system of North American consumption without regard for the environment or for the young girls who are doing the labor,” Mohamoud says. “Feels like gluttony to me.”