Interview with Yussef Agbo-Ola

REBECCA HERLEMANN (RH), ANTONINA KREZDORN (AK) In the context of exhibition preparations, your work came to our attention. Your field of work extends into design and visual arts and seem to stimulate experiences with all senses. This sparked our interest in your vision of new communities. When invited to create a new piece for the exhibition We Is Future: Visions of New Communities at Museum Folkwang, what was your first approach?

YUSSEF AGBO-OLA (YAO) At the time of your invitation, I was in the Amazon rainforest researching orchids and microorganisms in the Amazon River. Shortly after accepting the invitation, I was speaking with local medicine women on their role in their communities in regard to having a responsibility to both the human and non-human species in their environments. These elders have a unique gift of acting as bridges in communicating with non-human species as a way to then help or communicate back to human species in their [own] communities. The poison dart frog, for one elder, was her medium of choice when working with pregnant women in the community. The frog’s poison can be used in tiny doses as a painkiller. This exchange of knowledge was the starting point of the inspiration for the temple.

RH, AK To build onto these ‘environmental systems of entropy’, as you call them, what are the materials you choose to work with and how do you use them?

YAO Olaniyi Studio’s mission is to use natural and recycled materials in all the works that are produced. We have used a lot of cellulose fibres in the past, and based on the yarn chemistry and twisting architecture, the yarns can be stronger than steel. This is of great interest because nature has been producing fibres and geometries that have been resilient since the beginning of time, yet these materials also allow for internal structural flexibility, nutrient properties and adaptation to an environment’s needs and transitions. From my own heritage of the Indigenous ethnic groups of Yoruba and Cherokee lineage there is a deep cultural understanding that all materials have a living energy within them and that matter has a profound memory or sacredness. This means that waste is non-existent, and that re-use and recycling only embeds a deeper meaning in a material’s properties. The goal of the material selection is to create a temple that can breathe and has a porosity that allows for new life via plants or other organisms to consume or inhabit it as it creates a new microclimate and, as a result, a new ecosystem.

RH, AK So, what you are asking is for people to take the time to reflect upon their own positions towards nature, in the circle of life and death. This engagement with natural processes and the human impact is at the heart of all your work. How do you view Oriji: 12 Stone Frog Temple in the context of the We Is Future: Visions of New Communities exhibition? What ideas do you have for a better life in the future?

YAO Many times, the world of the microscopic or the unseen elements of an environment are overlooked because of the complexities of scale. The notion that humans have dominion over an environment breeds community perspective of dominance. It is this tension that the temple aims to counter as a way to highlight the small, fragile, delicate systems and organisms that we are connected to. Specifically, the endangered species in the Amazon forest which play a large role in making sure the oxygen that we breath is available. This temple connects to the theme of new communities by creating a sacred gathering space of environmental contemplation in the womb of a pregnant poison dart frog. This species is part of a community of amphibians that are dynamically affected by pollution and deforestation. When we have living architectural structures acting as contemplation spaces that help us to embrace, reflect and honour their role in our own existence, we create a new collective mental ecology that will impact a more grounded environmental future for humans and non-humans. This process acts as a catalyst for new communities to thrive.