Nifemi Marcus-Bello on design and identity

In this episode, our cofounder Alice Rawsthorn interviews Nifemi Marcus-Bello, the Nigerian designer who is at the forefront of the dynamic new design culture now emerging in West Africa. Nifemi describes how he draws on his research into West African design and making – past and present – to develop new objects that reflect the region’s cultural identity.

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Born in Nigeria, Nifemi was brought up there and in Zambia, before moving to the UK to study industrial design in Leeds. After completing his master’s degree in 2013, he returned to Lagos and worked for the architect Kunlé Adeyemi there and then for MASS Design Group in Rwanda, before opening his own studio in the city in 2017.

Nifemi has since designed objects that are steeped in West Africa’s rich culture of making and improvisational design. Most are inspired by the vernacular products he sees in daily use on the streets of Nigeria and its neighbours, including Lagos water carts and Beninese bamboo blinds. His work is also influenced by historic West African artefacts, such as ancient Benin bronzes and 19 th century Igbo sculpture. Nifemi then collaborates with skilled local makers on fabricating his objects, which are smart, resonant, and engaging. At an exciting time for designers throughout Africa, when many designers from the African diaspora are moving there, Nifemi’s conversation with Alice paints a vivid and realistic picture of their impact on our youngest, most rapidly urbanising continent.

You’ll find images of the projects described by Nifemi in this episode on Design Emergency's IG grid @design.emergency. And you can tune into this episode of Design Emergency and the others on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Acast, and other podcast platforms. Thank you for listening. Please join us for future episodes when we will interview other design leaders who, like Nifemi Marcus-Bello, are helping to build a better world in different fields and different parts of our planet.

Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts

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