Zoë Chinonso Ene
New ‘Nigerian’ Things • Exploring synthesis for cultural continuity in Nigerian product design and production potential
Summary
As a Nigerian product designer and design researcher of Igbo heritage, I wonder, what could the future of design ethos, production, and even definition in Nigeria hold? This research reflects on the potential of product design and culturally conscious production approaches as a
vehicle for Nigerian historic cultural continuity. I approach this potential using ethnography, co-design,
observational engagement with historical Igbo objects and creative systems (as a case study), and
personal practice.
My research approach is grounded in the Nigerian fine art theory of natural synthesis, coined by artist Uche Okeke and practiced by him and seven other notable Nigerian fine artists and designers (Demas Nwoko and Bruce Onobrakpeya, to name a few) while in school in the late 1950s, right before Nigeria gained independence from colonial rule in 1960. This philosophy of natural synthesis, which calls for a necessary inclusion of traditional form with the Western technique they were being taught to foster authentic creative output, drove their mentality and practice as artists in a state of cultural transition and nation-identity formation. If hybridity as creative remedy was explored when Nigeria was transitioning to an independent state, it is a worthy methodology for researching her future transitions.
Understanding this approach to processes of making and creative iteration and mindset as it could relate to product design today is the methodological foundation of my inquiry; from it grows my making projects (what I call synthesis experiments; see Prototype 001 →) and investigation into the potential development of an appropriate method and guidelines for Nigerian designers engaged in active design decolonization and cultural continuity through their practice.
Why Nigeria?
Nigeria is a country born from a colonized period, in a heavily globalized present, more consumptive than productive. It's biggest problem has been its inability to achieve and maintain a successful economic diversification primarily due to its political culture in which leaders prioritize personal gain and patronage and decline to make decisions for the health of the public good in the long term (Usman, 2022). One of the three pathways to achieving economic transformation and ultimate diversification in Nigeria, outlined by Dr. Zainab Usman (2022) is through “manufacturing and resource-based industrialization.” The limitations of the manufacturing sector, customer appetites curated by “foreign-is-better” attitudes and consumed media, and the prioritization of basic life needs all create an environment with little room for the majority of makers — both formal and informal — to fully explore what a Nigerian voice may look like in product design and production processes that impact and is accessible to everyday Nigerians, despite diverse historical perspectives in the creative ethos and making of useful objects.
This disconnect is evident not just in the physical displacement and larger lack of access to cultural history and face-to-face exploration, (due to most artifacts sitting in museums worldwide) but also in the unmet potential of integral influence on everyday materiality. Nigeria's rich creative history has not been fully incorporated into contemporary design in a contextually sensitive way.
Why is this important? Design has often been influenced by a Eurocentric perspective, with many modern concepts rooted in European history and the model of industrialization. As a market-driven force, globalization encourages generalized output regardless of culture and context. The need for cultural continuity responds to the inevitable reality of globalization because it contributes a Nigerian perspective which is inherently a "decolonial option" (Mignolo, 2011). Nigeria's design and design production landscape may have the potential to approach globalization uniquely by exploring contextually relevant options that also actively decolonize, continue, and communicate culture holistically through design.
In 1958, charged with the excitement of impending independence, Nigerian painter Uche Okeke (2019) reflected on the role and purpose of ‘Nigerian’ creativity moving forward. He founded The Zaria Arts Society, made up of eight fellow student artists to make art under an ethos of synthesis. Natural synthesis — the free incorporation of traditional creative vocabulary with the Western form they were being taught — was the foundation for fine-art making by the eight student artists and was an underlying philosophy in their eventual careers.
The research plan is to explore the role of design in Nigerian cultural continuity — through ethnography, co-design, observational engagement with objects from Igbo historical culture (as a case study), material methods, and personal practice — through the methodology of ‘synthesis’ (as historically experimented with in Nigerian fine art) over transference. This reflection uncovers an opportunity (for myself and Nigerian designers alike) to rethink and deconstruct the consciously or subconsciously dominant definitions and processes of design itself for the benefit of the Nigerian design-scape and the spaces and people it creates for.
Read the full abstract with research questions here.
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Mignolo, W. D. (2011). The darker side of Western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Duke University Press.
Okeke, U. (2019). Art in development—A Nigerian perspective ([E-book]). iwalewabooks.
Usman, Z. (2022). Economic Diversification in Nigeria: The Politics of Building a Post-Oil Economy. Zed Books. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350237674
Prototype 001
Synthesis (A + B = X)
To understand synthesis through practice, this first project focused on creating a tangible expression, in three-dimensional space, of the historical Igbo graphical language of Uli; the two-dimensional motifs of this unique mark-making system are currently only kept alive through fine art. A stool — another fixture in Igbo material history seemed a great object in the arena of domestic hospitality (another significant Igbo way-of-being) to design at the convergence (point X) of this synthesis trial.
The goal was to synthesize this historical creative vocabulary with Nigerian industrial designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello’s present-day process of fabrication for the design of domestic objects produced in Lagos. Marcus-Bello takes a production-first approach to his product design process by plugging into existing manufacturing resources (for not just execution but co-designing as well). His design ethos remains heavily contextual to Lagos' city environment and contemporary culture; his sheet metal LM stool and Selah lamp were co-designed with a local factory making sheet metal containers for generators. The material and process of this experiment were kept similar with the addition of sheet rolling and metal laser-cutting (available in certain Nigerian cities).
The default integration of two-dimensional graphical motifs in an industrialized process is arguably solely superficial. Therefore, ways that "ornamentation" can impact three-dimensional form intentionally while still retaining the cultural elements of this graphical language was investigated.
Uli designs by Igbo women that would be drawn on the hips of women. c. 1933, Igbo region of Eastern Nigeria. Source: ukpuru
Functional ornament
Embodying ornament in material manipulation and structural elements itself was explored, the former by curving the side sheets to capture the motifs in the stool’s negative space and the latter by exploring the concept of functional ornament.
Like the interlocking pegs of the Igbo model chair ↓ are able to be both a structural component and carrier of a distinct creative voice, the stool’s next iteration also plays with a pattern that can communicate ornament while also being a hinge that aids the bending process. This introduces a capacity for ornamentation in a production process outside of surface decoration that can continue to be explored in future iterations.
(L) Close-up of photograph of perforated bend in stool Prototype 001.
(R) Four process photographs of ongoing experimentation into “functional ornament” in the structural bend of the stool.
Ibo Model chair. Source: hFps://www.bonhams.com/auc6ons/21022/ lot/183/).
Self edited and annotated
