The Dwell 24: Tejumola Butler Adenuga

Tejumola Butler Adenuga was supposed to be a chemical engineer. Born in a small town near Lagos, Nigeria, he moved to London when he was in high school and took inspiration from what he was seeing on the internet to start drawing, secretly, though he had already been told his career path at birthU. "I couldn’t just tell my parents, oh, I want to be an artist," he says. So graphic design was the intermediary. ("The first thing they did was check the starting salary. And they’re like, ‘oh, not bad.’") After being encouraged by a friend to put together an exhibition of his work, in 2015, Adidas reached out—a missive Adenuga initially ignored, thinking it was either spam or a scam. The eventual successful collaboration under his belt "became the trigger for my self-belief that if I can do this now, the sky’s the limit." He’s since worked across mediums with outlets ranging from the New York Times to Soho.Home.Studio.

It wasn’t until March 2020, when the world was beginning to grapple with what would become the Covid pandemic, that Adenuga began to explore furniture, after suffering from a burst appendix that kept him in the hospital for six weeks. "It was a very close to near death experience. It brings perspective and the ego goes out the window. And you kind of begin to question, like, okay, I’m making this artwork and I have a notion behind it and self-expression. But what goes beyond that surface? And the conclusion to that was I needed to make things of permanence beyond the 2D surface."

That inspiration has resulted in aluminum based works like his Temple Desk, created for a housemate. It had to fit in a two-meter space, which resulted in the tiered shape sitting on two cylinders, and was inspired by a lamp he had made previously. In fact, he’s now made a large portion of the furniture in his home. Adenuga is focused on materials that look like what they are, that form things people will want to keep for a long time, and that fulfill his theme of "West African fictional mythology," an outgrowth of his desire to complete the narratives of his Yoruban ancestors that have been washed away by colonization and slavery. "My aim is to take those stories and finish them via a mythological lens, kind of like what could’ve happened if a certain community had control over their own resources?"

Though he still works as a graphic designer full-time, Adenuga has a clear end goal: "To one day be able to create a space where people can come and execute the ideas for free," a circular economy where a space used for idea generation might bear the fruit of something sellable, and the profits from that could go back into the space. "I think that that’s the point in which I would feel like, okay, cool. I’m done now."

Read the full Q&A with Tejumola Butler Adenuga below.

Hometown: Ijebu-Ode.

Describe what you make in 140 characters... Furniture, paintings and drawings inspired by west African fictional mythology.

What’s the last thing you designed? A coffee table for a friend.

Do you have a daily creative ritual? I have a trio of design websites I visit to catch up on the latest news, with a cup of mint tea.

How do you procrastinate? Binge-watch a spy drama.

What everyday object would you like to redesign? Why? I think the umbrella could be improved; better wind resistance, portability, durability, user-friendly features, and sustainable materials, making it more practical and desirable, etc.

Who are your heroes (in design, in life, in both)? David Adjaye, Cheryl D. Miller, Virgil Abloh, Theaster Gates.

What skill would you most like to learn? Electrics.

What is your most treasured possession? My computer.

What’s your earliest memory of an encounter with design? That would be the basket weavers atelier on the street I grew up.

What contemporary design trend do you despise? Cloud Sofas.

Finish this statement: All design should... Bring joy.

What’s in your dream house? Pierre Paulin Dune Sofa.

How can the design world be more inclusive? Making design education more accessible.

What do you wish non-designers understood about the design industry? Ideation is more expensive than you think.

You can learn more about Tejumola Butler Adenuga on Instagram.

View the 2023 Dwell 24!

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