.jpg)
This thought was shared in April 2023 at the Cumulus conference in Antwerp. Read the full paper with citations on page 570.
Tensions
I’ve received questions such as “Is this really a design problem?” or “This is just nostalgia, isn’t it?” or “Why does this matter when the climate is in crisis?”, in response to my research’s focus and direction. These questions find their roots in three tensions - nostalgia, necessity, and care. It is important to sit with them and critically consider how they relate to the definition of my gap and inquiry overall, whether as a propelling or opposing current. This research examines the relationship between Nigeria's historical creative output and the lenses of art and design through which they’re viewed. While European narratives historically diminished African contributions, colonialism placed selective value on these objects, displacing them as a sign of conquest. Despite inspiring modern forms, these useful objects are not regarded in design discourse and are often compartmentalized to anthropological and fine art groupings. Efforts to decolonize design history and education have sparked ongoing discourse on the value and relevance of these objects, which were made with purpose and for use.
From the perspective of the “African” if I were to be so general, the approach to creative output has had less compartments. Interestingly, Some african languages don’t even have a word for art.Arguably then, art and design in the Nigerian context are much closer than they seem. Or at least they were. This is not an argument for a unification of the terms or equalization of the disciplines but I use the married word “artdesign” to explain this Nigerian philosophy towards creativity and how this could be considered for product design potential today in my research. Renowned artist and architect Demas Nwoko speaks to this philosophy here and has engaged it practically in his work.
In 1960, artist Uche Okeke formed an 8 student artists group, including Demas Nwoko, to address authentic fine art making in newly independent Nigeria. Okeke's theory of natural synthesis blended traditional creative vocabulary and Western form. Though initially used to guide fine art making and give students struggling with culture conflict a sense of direction, I’ve found that natural synthesis is a process that has echoed throughout Nigeria’s ethnic creative history. This Igbo chair is an example, blending European form with Igbo creative vocabulary in its functional pegs which hold the chair’s pieces together:
So as I research the past’s role in product design, I ask, how much must the status quo change to reflect this historical understanding? What changes are needed? And how does this researcher “look back” at a blurry past to try and answer this question?
Nostalgia
Of nostalgia, cultural critic Svetlana Boym defines two types: restorative nostalgia, which seeks to restore an ideal past, and reflective nostalgia, which is a self-aware engagement of the past. Boym recommends a healthy fear when looking backward and proposes that though both can co-exist, it is important to distinguish between them. Your why has to be clear. Nwoko optimistically believes traditional influence is what Nigerian industries desperately need. on the other hand, Design theorist, Gui Bonsiepe who worked in Latin America studying the role of design in the global south, has a pessimistic view of using the past for contemporary design; He didn’t consider it possible saying “Nostalgia is not an effective way to prepare for the future.”
The value of the past in the present is debatable, however it is not enough to postulate on its lack of value. Experimentation - especially by those tied to that creative heritage - is the right to explore the gap in knowledge created by colonialism. The right to determine value in the present for oneself. Investigation itself shouldn’t be labeled as futile nostalgic activity; there should neither be dependence nor dismissal of the past. Repositioning the past for the benefit of the future is also a decolonial renegotiation of our relationship with time, illustrated in the Nigerian natural synthesis approach, which uses the past as a foundation for future creativity.
Therefore, for culturally-connected designers and design researchers, it is also important to approach the past with what I call ...a reflective decolonization mindset. It is helpful to consider the relationship between a present “post” state and a past “colonial” history. Not just in defining ongoing coloniality or defining the time after a colonial period but I propose a mindset that intentionally widens the gap between "post" and "colonial" when considering the present. To be post colonization that is, to move beyond being defined by it. To Recognize that colonialism was not the beginning of the story. This could help designers engage with the past responsibly as they work to offer decolonial options.
Now that a nuanced approach towards nostalgia has been considered, the Nigerian designer/researcher must then ask, how dire is this?
Necessity
Decolonization starts with changing one's perspective. For those whose creative histories were disregarded, decolonization involves the option for necessary retrieval rather than futile nostalgia. A remedy to embedded insecurity. Material restoration, as advocated for by Fanon, in Black Skin, White Masks, captures the urgency behind the desire for tangible balance and harmony in these spaces. The benefit being disalienation post-colonial (with no space or hyphen) theorist Walter Mignolo defines the Western rationale for colonialism, expansion, and civilizing as the logic of coloniality, of which modernity is its other, darker side; one does not exist without the other. For designers in post-colonial spaces defining contextual modernity, remaining critical about what that looks like is necessary because of ongoing coloniality; that upholds dominant expressions of modernity in design that become the ubiquitous standard despite of culture or environment.
This then is the foundation for necessity for the Nigerian designer/researcher in a rapidly globalized world; the need for more decolonial options. Options for ways modernity can manifest differently in various cultural contexts. Coloniality also still drives, and may always drive, the product design lifecycle, which has been historically extractive from the periphery (non-industrialized spaces) for the centre (industrialized spaces). Even today most major exports out of the global south are still raw materials. The dominant belief is that modernization is necessary for progress, and industrialization is the way to achieve it. Research into more decolonial options creates opportunities to engage with undervalued knowledge for a more equitable and contextual approach to sustainability.
So what we see is that design and designed things have the power and ability to design us. To shape parts of our identities for better or for worse. In decolonization, there is a need to question our design processes and use design to experiment with options. Design does not and can not save; design advocates for the better and encourages a hopeful shift toward it.
Next is to determine what impact that has on people and spaces. That’s where care comes in.
Care
Co-creating and co-futuring is a decolonial method in its own right, given its focus on communal skill sharing. To care in this process is to make sure the attitude of participatory decolonization research should be non-hierarchical; it is not a mission of design knowledge depositing but of expanding the knowledge of design for oneself and the field at large and for the sake of one’s research. One way to do this is through the centering of local knowledge-makers and putting them in charge of the design process; fostering innovative agency and avoiding using for labor.
Care then becomes transmutable and tangible when designers understand the impact of the things created. This looks like avoiding gimmicks of Afrocentric signals that bear little to no foundation in any specificity or playing into over-saturations. Designers and researchers engaging in decolonization practice should care for what is created and how it inserts into public realms for tactile engagement. Only with uninhibited and consistent interaction by all can these design experiments — these caring objects and experiences — communicate a new possible future.
Balance
What emerges, once all tensions are considered, is a foundation for me to stand when approaching my research gap. Therefore, the research plan is to explore the role of design in Nigerian historical and cultural awareness and growth — through ethnography, co-design, observational engagement with objects from Igbo historical culture (as a case study), and personal practice — through the methodology of synthesis. If hybridity as creative remedy was explored when Nigeria was transitioning to an independent state, it might be a worthy methodology for researching her future transitions.
As a Nigerian product designer and design researcher, this reflection uncovers an opportunity (for myself and Nigerian designers alike) to explore this through the development of new methods for proper synthesis in making and unmaking design processes, to define what proper and improper synthesis looks like and if those distinctions even exist, and to determine what can be synthesized with or into what in order to inform this possible etiquette of synthesis, through experimental and engaging practice.
So to summarize, this is how my research relates to these tensions. it employs
- a nuanced mindset -- when engaging with Nigeria’s creative past
- a well-considered urgency -- when defending the right to experimentation and for the creation of decolonial options and
- an ethical bedrock -- for engaging in research activity of co-creation, defining a method for synthesis, and what I make
