An innovative design studio that develops multidisciplinary relationships to realise ideas around themes of environmentalism, Olaniyi's work is characterised by both a richness of cultural identities and a strong narrative of environmental and social issues. The studio questions how art, architecture and anthropological research can create experimental environments that challenge the way we experience geological conditions and living ecosystems. We had a conversation with the studio's founder Yussef Agbo-Ola about Olaniyi and his current work.
Who is Yussef Agbo-Ola? Can you briefly tell us about yourself?
Yussef Agbo-Ola is my name given to me by my parents, and it has a lot of symbolic meaning in many cultures. But the truth is we are not fully our names even though they define elements of our character, and is what we hear the world calls us when it speaks. More than any title I am a constant observer of the unseen and sacred in all forms of matter within our surrounding natural environment. This pillar grounds me and has been the foundational energy for my work as an artist and medicinal architect.
How would you define your art philosophy? Environment and nature play a big role in Olaniyi Studio's work. How was your mission to expand environmental awareness through art and design shaped?
Growing up as a kid, in rural Virginia I spent a lot of time in natural landscapes and when I look back I can see that I was experiencing the textures of light, sound, space, and color in reflective way that some could say had a spiritual affect on me. I found a spiritual connection with my environment that made me feel really grounded to the Earth. I could dance with the rivers and was always humbled by the voice of mountains. After studying art, and architecture I wanted to somehow translate that kind of spiritual bond that I have with the natural environment into artworks and different expressions of architectural experiments that people could also observe and reverence the complex systems in an ecosystem in more dynamic ways. For me my art philosophy always starts with intense observation with the negation of distraction. Trying to remain present in observation is not an easy task but I think the more attention to environmental awareness one has the more an environment will speak to you. For example looking at the natural environment with the same lens as the scientist but not in the scientific way in relation to trying to know what exactly an element is just to classify it, rather taking on observation in the energy of amazement. Just noticing the beauty that is in the natural world and then from there finding connection.
YEMOJA TEMPLE
How do you establish a dialogue with nature itself in the design process?
The realm of the unseen, beyond the scale of what the natural eye can see. Also being aware of the voices in nature, and practicing deep listening play a big park in the design process. I find that different plants that will speak to you through smell, through color, or trees collaborate with the sun to reflect symbolic patterns of light that also communicate with us if we just take a second to actually like look at the different symbols environment in attention. In my Yorurba culture we believe that there are always ancestors that are speaking to us and are here to assist us in life. But our ancestors are not limited to just the human realm, these ancestors are also connected to the non human world. This is another reason why I think its so important to experience nature in a state of reflection or contemplation because there is always a something to learn.
The second level specifically with the temples that Im currently work on has to do with submission to the elements. The designs are first made for different museums and galleries but after the temple is kind of shown in this environment I like the idea of the temple actually going back into the natural environment and being able to transform and decay. At that stage there is a natural feedback loop that happens that I have no control over. As a temple transforms in a forest, desert or on the side of a mountain there are different organisms that start to inhabit it, the rain changes the color of the fabrics and the temple creates a new micro climate. So on the one hand its very important for me to design through reflection of an environment to start the process but on the other hand Im always humbled by what I actually see how the environment through collaboration then transforms the temple through the process of weathering and decay. A dialogue then starts through the transformation of the actual textiles making it a living entity. I think that dialogue from me is an ongoing one that is only something that I can observe based on the collaboration with the natural environment and natural elements and weather systems that are embedded in nature.
“Having a dialogue with nature for me is something that is constantly fluid, like a feedback loop that is constantly happening through the work, so I would say initially it starts with looking at different natural elements at the microscopic level.”
You attach great importance to collective knowledge sharing. What role do the knowledge and experiences you have gained from different cultures and groups play in your projects?
Each material element has components of sacredness embedded within its chemistry as material so I think Im looking to find what I feel from the objects, in reflections of the cultures that these artifacts come from. Its not just with people that knowledge exchange can occur, its also the sublime energy of a place, topology, among other elements. I've always tried to mimic this internal understanding of the sacred energy in all matter and from From that create passage ways or different connections that bring us closer to the unseen. I'm always inspired by my heritage and other cultures and their cosmologies but also rituals and ceremonies that are embedded in other cultures. For me I like the idea of the alchemy of understanding. Reflecting on other systems of understand also helps he to understand my own mental ecology. Being able to be a sponge and funnel symbolic information and create something new from that energy is very important for me.
PITU
Which of your works has excited you the most in terms of the design process and the final product?
It's hard to say actually, which works have given me the most excitement because I feel like each work or each temple or each design that I'm working on has a totally different energy that is always ongoing. I can maybe talk about, a project that I have worked on recently that made me engage in a more intimate way with my mental ecology while also being challenging in regard to tying to creating at a different scale. The first one is Oriji: 12 Stone Frog Temple. This is the largest temple that I've made so far it's about eleven x thirteen meters and five meters in height. What was so interesting about this project was the time I spent with different medicine men and women in the Amazon Forest. I was really interested in their relationship with the community and how they balance communicating with unseen natural realms in there environment on behalf of the inhabitants in their communities. This environmental awareness and communication that they have environmentally could talk on many forms of ritual, once that I observed was a female shaman speaking to a pregnant poison dart frog. The frog is a sacred creature to her, one that she relies on for messages, but also uses for medicines.
Her comment and discussion with me was that this sacred relationship she has with the frog was actually becoming harder to maintain being that she is seeing less than less of them in the forest. It's actually a tiny frog, some of the species of poison dart frog can be the size of a human fingernail. So for the me as an artist I wanted to work with this experience and noted to myself that maybe it was an issue again of scale. The threshold of understanding cross culturally. How could I make this issue for her and her village symbolically larger? Or how could I also connect with the poison dart frog who is currently endangered and on the verge of extinction in the Amazon? To make the small, big, the fragile, structurally strong etc. What would it mean if we actually could make a structure that was symbolic for the poison dart frog but also allowed you to be in the womb it as well. The temple geometry was inspired by the anatomy of this frog and the different species of knitted fabric skins on the temple was also inspired by a female poison frog that was pregnant with many eggs. This symbolizes the dynamic visistudes that we are living through theses days, the birth, death, and rebirth all happening at the same time but with different intensities and ratios. The temples aim is to visualize this in a tectonic that allows for contemplation and reverence for the frog. Making a place where we can actually see them in a totally different light and reflect on there importance to ecosystems. In Yoruba “Origi" means forgiveness.
ORIJI
What do you do for inspiration? Who are the names you follow with curiosity in this field or from different disciplines?
A new inspiration I have is scuba diving, this originated from a research project I did with two scientists recently. We went scuba diving in Tanzania, it's a totally different world when you are underwater, it taught me so much about the breath, the weight of the water, the color, and the underwater changes in the current. There is so much energy underwater, and so much life underwater that sometimes goes unnoticed. The forms, shapes and geometry found in the oceans and other bodies of water, lakes, rivers etc are a constant inspiration as well. Beyond that I would say my relationship with the layers and architectures of musical composition. There's something very poetic about experimental rhythms in music. I've been listening to a lot of music from Ethiopia and Thailand recently, also some Julius Eastman and Emma Hoy Mariam. I think music in general has always been very influential, I see a symbolic relation between the patterns of composition and the patterns in nature, the geometry of sound has been a huge inspiration for me as well. Another ritual I find my self doing a lot these days for inspiration is watching Amazonian leaf cutter ants. There is something really beautiful about just seeing them walk and move in these enormous lines through the forest . They make trails one behind the other working together as a collective. How they communicate with each other and share different resources for the common goal is really inspiring so I've been looking a lot of their anatomy but also just how they function within their micro ecosystem underground.
Are you excited for the future? What are your plans?
I'm an optimist at heart and I'm really excited about the future, but not really in the sense of a technological perspective. Im more excited about experiencing more depth in relationships with humans and non humans, and understanding both my internal and external world in new ways. I think there's something really beautiful about being alive right now and being an artist and architect in the present moment. I feel that all my interest, experiences, my birth place, convictions, and environmental perceptive is in alignment with the now, so I truly enjoy reflecting and connection to my purpose other here and now but also continuing in the future. What we create right now has a weight, and responsibility like no other time on Earth, I like to this about this criticality, as engird for new ideas. One future project that I'm really excited about is to create sacred spaces underneath the Earth. Working on different temples that are actually underground is something that has really been a research aim in the studio. Currently working towards securing a commission for it but I think there's something beautiful about actually walking underneath the surface of the Earth. Going underground and being able to actually see what's there, let's say eight meters underneath the Earth. Also thinking about different ways of movement and transition. So working on different vehicle design as well has been something that the studio has been quietly working on. Thinking about designs that question new forms of mobility, in relation to perspective, and scale.
