Moyo Ogunseinde, a real estate developer, architect, and
product designer, is breaking rank as well. Inspired by her
childhood memories of festivals and a countryside life where
grandparents were neighbors and not a distant call away,
she founded Aga Concept to create minimalist design
objects that, unlike Marcus-Bello’s, might actually be
identified as “authentic” African design, reinterpreted in
contemporary ways.
“As Africans, we want someone else’s memories, we want
someone else’s cars or fashion. Why aren’t our memories
good enough? It is because we are not capturing them for
people to relive them,” she says, inviting me to share a bowl
of popcorn when we meet at Upbeat, an indoor sports center
she designed.
Ogunseinde is alluding to the success of an expansive
Western global capitalist retail culture mixed with the
hangover of a colonial era when Nigerians and Africans at
large were conditioned to think west is (the only) best, while
at the same time playing into Western definitions of what
African design should look like. Victoria Beckham over Ejiro
Amos Tafiri or Meena.
Instead, Ogunseinde wants her history to be “touched and
felt,” so she designs products with it. She grew up in Ibadan,
in southwestern Nigeria, where agriculture was the
mainstay of the economy, so she made the Oko, a chair
shaped like a hoe, to remind herself and others of that time.
She’s also been creating objects inspired by the masked,
costumed figures, or masquerades, called Egungun, which
used to terrify her as a child. They were welcomed to Ibadan
every July, said to represent the collective spirit of
ancestors. Some of Ogunseinde’s versions are nine-feet tall,
some bear hats. She’s currently in the process of scaling the
design to create lamps.
Not everyone is keen to have their bedside light inspired by
ancestral history. A Christian friend once told Ogunseinde
she was crossing a line, “eulogizing spirits.” “[But] I don’t
want to be so precious about our history that I don’t move it
forward,” Ogunseinde says, shrugging.
Oreoluwa Oluwatobi, an architect turned designer who
founded Alaga Collections, is also borrowing from history,
albeit more literally. When he made Akanke, a contemporary
rocking chair—a rarity in Nigerian furniture—customers
received more than a nostalgic design. They were also
getting a story: the name is drawn from the Yoruba
language, meaning something that a thing that takes care of
you, that rocks you.
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