"My aim has always been to interrogate material histories and identity, while trying to understand their cultural significance within society"
Nifemi Marcus-Bello
Tiwani Contemporary and Marta Los Angeles are excited to present Material Affirmations - ORÍKÌ Acts I-III, the first solo show in Lagos of internationally renowned designer and artist, Nifemi Marcus-Bello (b.1988 Lagos, Nigeria).
The exhibition is a contemplative revelry on material identity and evolution with consideration of craftsmanship and handwork by Nifemi and various craftsmen. The oríkì which is the Yoruba multi-generational practice of praise poetry and spoken affirmation atmospherically holds the exhibition together, with a soundscape that features the voice of Folake Marcus-Bello, the artist's mother, delivering her personalised oríkì to her son. Each ORÍKÌ Act prompts our attention and awareness to historical, geopolitical and consumer material culture; Act I Friction Ridge is focused on bronze. Act II Tales By Moonlight centres aluminium, and Act III Whispers of a Trail engages with a copper alloy.
The objects in this exhibit intentionally reflect and contemplate evolution, scarcity and availability acting as an archive to what has been, what is, what’s to come. Each Act mobilises its questions through material experimentations and conversations between Marcus-Bello and producer-craftsmen; exchanges that are focused around traditional, and often locally vernacular methods of fabrication that transform the materials usage. Having presented ORÍKÌ Acts I, II and III in Los Angeles and Miami between 2023-2025, editions have found homes at the Brooklyn Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Los Angeles County Museum and a Special Mention Award at this year’s Loewe Craft Prize in Madrid, Spain.
Material Affirmations - ORÍKÌ Acts I-III
Past, Present, Future = Bronze, Aluminium, Copper
Bronze stands as a symbol of the past in the context of Nigerian craftsmanship and creative exploration. The Benin Bronzes, with their intricate artistry and profound cultural symbolism, still serve as one of the most iconic examples of material identity on the continent. They remind us of a time when African societies were not just consumers of design but creators of high-value, globally admired work and not validation. The techniques used by the Benin bronze casters were refined, intentional, and deeply embedded in cultural rituals and storytelling. Here, bronze is not just a material, it’s a vessel for memory and identity.
In sharp contrast, aluminium represents our complicated present. Much of the aluminium in Nigeria today comes through second-hand goods, remnants of overconsumption in the Global North. Discarded appliances, cans, cars, and electronics find new life here, often through informal recycling economies. There’s something both resourceful and troubling about this. On one hand, it showcases local ingenuity and adaptability. On the other, it highlights the uneven flows of material and capital that continue to define our global economic systems. Aluminium becomes a reflection of global excess and local resilience.
Looking to the future, copper emerges as a key material of interest. Africa is rich in copper, particularly in regions like Zambia, where I spent some of my formative years, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as this part of the continent is also known as the Copperbelt. Yet much of this raw material is exported without refinement, reinforcing patterns of extraction without value addition. The question then becomes: How can we imagine a future in which copper is not just mined, but refined and transformed within the continent? Can we develop systems and infrastructures that allow for material processing, innovation, and ownership? Copper becomes a symbol not just of technological potential-used in electronics, energy systems, and telecommunications—but of economic autonomy and forward-thinking design.
ACT I - Friction Ridge
Eschewing the presentation of multiple work typologies in favor of the focus emphasized by the repetition of a single form, Marcus-Bello makes the physicality, texture, production process, and associated producer-craftsmen a vital part of these works’ outward legibility; indeed, the pieces are surfaced with the imprints of the designer and artisans involved in their fabrication.
Friction Ridge: the name of these functional sculptures as well as the title of this first Act, refers to the skin present along the lengths of the fingers and palmar surfaces of the hand: ridges and valleys used for the kinds of gripping and mechanical motions that Marta’s colleague, the ceramicist Alex Reed, refers to tenderly as ‘touch work’. Marcus-Bello cites as inspiration a tradition of the Surma people of Ethiopia, who paint themselves and one another using the repetitive imprints of their finger pads, an artistic expression as well as one of camaraderie.
Collaboratively fabricated between Lagos and Benin City, the pieces in Oríkì (Act I) are realised by way of the same lost-wax casting technique previously used to create royal portraiture in the Benin Kingdom.. The recent repatriation of a number of these bronzes prompted Marcus-Bello to envision contemporary forms realised using historic techniques and regional expertise. The resulting bench works are multi-occupant seating sculptures composed not of straight lines but of gentle curves, gracefully proposing several sitters in reflective communion.
ACT II - Tales By Moonlight
Named for the beloved children’s television series of the same name (aired on Sundays from 1984–2002 on the Nigerian Television Authority), Tales by Moonlight highlights the personal and collective narratives at the core of Marcus-Bello’s interactions with region- and need-specific craft communities in and around his hometown.
Marcus-Bello began interrogating issues of globalization, production chains, and supply-and-demand dynamics after developing a relationship with a group of autopart casters in Lagos who’d helped repair his personal automobile. Each question he posed; what is a material’s role in society? How does it get here? Who is in charge of its lifecycle? led back to a cottage industry that has emerged across West Africa to fabricate the parts needed for the second-cycle cars that arrive in the region from the United States and Europe, many of which have fallen prey to the generally accepted and highly destructive practice of planned obsolescence. These auto part facsimiles, constructed in sand-cast aluminum the quickest, most affordable, and most recyclable material readily available, ensure the life of imported cars, which, in their original country of purchase are often deemed too expensive or difficult to maintain once their manufacturers cease to make the parts necessary for their upkeep.
Marcus-Bello's exploration of this industry reflects the politics of use in both local and global markets. Through his relationship with these autoparts casters in Lagos, Marcus-Bello was exposed to a material-specific craft that underpins a significant mechanism of transport in Nigeria (4WD vehicles are particularly valuable due to infrastructural demands), which he has integrated into his own practice, collaborating with the same craftsmen to help realize these new designs.
Together, they have produced a body of work that pays homage to the nation’s rich history of craft (previously, Marcus-Bello worked alongside the famed bronze masters of Benin City) while highlighting the designer’s central interest in process and traditional, often vernacular, methods of fabrication. In this collection of formally related typologies of seating, tabling, presentation, and spatial division, a series of cones, planes, discs, and bowls abstractly reference forms often found in the formalized industrial design of autoparts, thus reframing the cultural, economic, and material genesis of Marcus-Bello’s work.
ACT III - Whispers of a Trail
Following Friction Ridge and Tales by Moonlight (both 2023), represents the exploration into materiality evolution, labor, and the intricate networks that shape our access to resources. ACTIII - Whispers of a Trail; focuses on Marcus-Bello’s interest in the politics of extraction, refinement, procurement, and manipulation of a single elemental material in this case, copper.
Marcus-Bello’s connection to copper is both personal and geographical. Having spent his formative years in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, Marcus-Bello’s is intimately familiar with the copperbelt, a region spanning northern Zambia and southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the metal is mined alongside cobalt, another valuable resource essential to lithium-ion batteries. Yet, despite copper’s abundance in Africa, it remains largely inaccessible. Extracted and exported for processing, only to be re-imported at a premium, its movement reflects the contradictions of global trade, where the continent’s resources are depleted while local economies struggle to benefit from their own wealth. This realization shifted Marcus-Bello’s focus to Lagos’ second-hand metal market, where copper is reduced to scrap, sold by the kilogram, and rarely acknowledged for its intrinsic potential. Here, amidst the ebb and flow of transactions, Marcus-Bello found the whispers of material promise that shaped this body of work.
Working alongside a network of community members, craftsmen, and tradespeople, Marcus-Bello sourced copper and transformed it into four editions, tabling, seating, and lighting; each piece existing independently yet interconnected in function.
At the heart of this collection is Daybed (2025), a work born from collective ingenuity. The supports, cast from a single mold, were realized in collaboration with the same casters who helped bring Act II of the Oríkì series to life. This multifaceted piece extends a lustrous surface from the seat of a chair, its form unified by a shared backrest from which a single candle holder rises, a beacon and a triangulation of use. Whether seated or reclining, the span of Headrest (2025) curves generously, drawing inspiration from the historic typologies of the Sotho and Shona peoples. This marks my first direct engagement with the design lineage of stools and headrests, objects whose presence is deeply woven into the cultural fabric of the continent.
Nearby, Low Table (2025) gleams against the poured concrete floor, its off-center surface catching light like a newly minted penny on the street, a momentary glimmer of value in an often-overlooked material. In Charcoal Lamp (2025), I juxtapose slender copper constructions with reclaimed American pine, the wood blackened to evoke ebony, a material once abundant in Africa but now rare and highly regulated. Like copper, it tells a story of extraction and loss.
Each of these works extends beyond mere function. They are metaphysical objects, reflective surfaces that speak to our deepest desires and dependencies. Through them, Marcus-Bello seeks to illuminate not just the material itself, but the histories, economies, and human hands that shape its journey.
About the Artist
Nifemi Marcus-Bello is a Lagos-based industrial designer and artist who runs a practice rooted in humility, cultural context, and process-led innovation. His work bridges commercial and artistic design, drawing from African traditions to create objects that are intuitive, functional, and deeply connected to place. He embraces design as a dialogue; responsive, evolving, and grounded in real-world interactions. His work is held in major institutions including MoMA, The Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, and The Design Museum, London. In 2025, he received a Special Mention Award at the Loewe Craft Prize for his contribution to contemporary design and craft.
Recent selected exhibitions include:Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize (2025). Oríkì Series – ACT III: Whispers of aTrail, Marta, Los Angles, U.S.A. (2025). Pirouette: Turning Points in Design, The Museum of Modern Art, NewYork, U.S.A. (2025). By Design: Stories and Ideas Behind Objects, Denver Art Museum, Denver, U.S.A. (2024),Omi Iyọ, Palazzo Litta, Milan, Italy (2024), New Wave, Future Voices in Art, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam,Netherlands (2024). Sharjah Architecture Triennale, Sharjah, UAE (2023). Oríkì Series – ACT II: Tales By Moonlight, Design Miami, U.S.A.(2023), Oríkì Series – ACT I: Friction Ridge, Marta LA, U.S.A. (2023). 12thInternational Design Biennale Saint-Étienne, France (2022). Various Artists, “Under/Over”, Marta Los Angeles,U.S.A (2020).
