In 2023, Nifemi Marcus-Bello remade the moon. At Design Miami last December he showed a series of seating and sculpture made from rough, sand-cast aluminum. The pieces evoked celestial forms but also, as he notes, traced the path of materials migrating to and from Africa. The Nigerian designer’s work regularly poses questions about the complexities of global production systems and contemporary West African experiences by exploring centuries-old metalworking techniques and synthesizing abstracted forms taken from multiple sources, including a show about folktales told in lunar light.

Tying multiple threads together is an important part of Marcus-Bello’s approach. After studying design in the U.K., he moved across Africa pursuing a desire to focus his practice there, first to Nairobi, then to Kigali, and finally returning to his birthplace, Lagos, where he set up nmbello Studio. We spoke with him about finding inspiration in the local recycling culture and how moving home has reframed what he values about design.

What did you present at Design Miami last year?

Tales by Moonlight, which is part of my Oríkì design series and features an eight-piece sand-cast-aluminum furniture and object installation. It was produced in one of the biggest scrapyards in Lagos, which I learned of because I purchased and shipped a secondhand car from America. It had been in an accident, so I had to repair it myself. My cousin took me to the scrapyard to look for parts, to a place called Owode Onirin. The car is a Mitsubishi, which is uncommon in Lagos, yet I found what I needed in five minutes there, which fascinated me.

Afterward, I would just go there, some Saturdays, to observe the small-scale sand-casting using melted scrap—people making door handles or window frames. I got told off for trying to take photos, but despite that, I wanted to have a dialogue with this community, so I engaged them through creating objects together.

What did you make with them?

We made five vessels, a single seat, a bench, and a moon. The name Tales by Moonlight comes from a television series that was broadcast each day after school, where an elder sits under a tree, telling folk stories to children. The work presents new typologies that explore the multifunctionality of objects and how a modern-day African would want to sit and how they could interact with material or form. I wanted these designs to be obtrusive, because design in Africa is obtrusive—it’s right in front of you.

**This work is the second installment in your Oríkì design series, which you started in 2022. Can you describe the practice of oríkì in Yoruba culture and how you’re applying it to your work?**

Each person has their own oríkì, a sort of poem which is spoken and memorized to be told to the next generation. The objects in this series archive a story that’s passed on from one generation of maker to another through their materiality, technique, and the object itself.

In 2019, I started a research project called Africa – A Designer’s Utopia, where I archived anonymously designed objects, for example the wheelbarrow-like meruwa, which is used to transport water, and the kwali, a structure used by street hawkers to sell small items such as snacks. It opened my perspective to how design could be practiced around West Africa: community-led and open-sourced. It’s not pretentious, but it’s in your face, true to materials, the user, and every single stakeholder.

Similarly, I approach my work for the galleries as an archival practice. My previous work for Marta gallery in Los Angeles in the Oríkì series, Friction Ridge, investigates the age-old material technique and technology of bronze-casting.

Did this collaboration with the Owode Onirin community cause your approach to design and production to evolve?

The Tales by Moonlight objects are largely unfinished, which reflects how we interact with materials here, where we appreciate the rawness. That’s a change.

There’s something specific about a lot of production in West Africa and the wider region that embraces what the West might call “imperfection.” Design priorities are different here.

Exactly! I’m relearning that through making here, which allows me to be true to how perfection is understood within our way of living. My mindset has shifted quite a bit as I’ve been getting in touch with cultural nuances and the evolution of materials here.

**You also designed Omi Oyo, a reflective boatlike, sculptural installation that holds salt, releasing it in a pile below, over the five days of Design Miami. What inspired that?**

This work is about young Africans risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean because of the socioeconomic hardships that result from systemic inequity and lack of opportunity. I was visiting the Venice Architectural Biennale, and I had a conversation there with a Senegalese migrant who told me his story, and it was just heartbreaking. The only thing he joked about was that when he got to Italy, he didn’t want to have anything with salt in it for a very long time. He said, “All I could taste was salt in my mouth.” That inspired this five-foot half-sphere that releases salt to the ground, echoing the capsizing of a boat.

“Even though Africa has become a continent of consumers, things are still made here. I’m seeking to celebrate that.”
—Nifemi Marcus-Bello

You went to school in the U.K., and you’ve set up in Nigeria. In both environments you have access to certain technology, certain material, but there are also boundaries around the type of production that you would do in each place and the access you would have to particular things. What do you see as the advantage of producing in Nigeria, conceptually but also technically?

Conceptually, there’s a shift in how modern-day Africans live, with more people occupying smaller flats, compared to previous generations who lived in larger houses. This creates a space to begin a dialogue around new, everyday typologies and forms. For example, Tales by Moonlight presents multifunctional pieces that have been designed to work as seating, a tabletop, or even storage. Their use can be adapted based on the scale of the space.

When I eventually moved back to Lagos, people in Europe would suggest that I return because they didn’t believe that I could design from West Africa. I considered it, but when I opened my third eye, I realized that design shouldn’t be unattainable because it’s everyday, especially on the continent. It’s not documented, it’s not spoken about, but it’s ubiquitous.

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