This article is part of our Design special report previewing Milan Design Week.
Lani Adeoye is a globe-straddler.
The designer moves between teaching design at her alma mater, Parsons School of Design in New York City, and managing projects at her company, Studio-Lani, in her hometown, Lagos, Nigeria.
This week, Ms. Adeoye, 35, will be somewhere in the middle, having curated “Craft West Africa,” an exhibition at SaloneSatellite, the annual showcase of emerging designers at the Salone del Mobile fair in Milan whose theme this year is “New Craftsmanship: A New World.”
“I fiercely believe in this rich yet undervalued area of design,” she said of handmade objects.
Marva Griffin Wilshire, the founder and curator of SaloneSatellite, said that once she had settled on Africa as a focus of the 2025 edition, she asked Ms. Adeoye to participate.
“With her strong links to the region, I wanted Lani to be a part of the project, to conduct research and bring the insights to the fair,” she said. Ms. Adeoye obliged with a roster of artisans from Senegal, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Nigeria, who will be exhibiting contemporary pieces made with traditional methods, including stools and tables.
The products from Burkina Faso, for instance, are bronzes fabricated through lost-wax casting, a technique of pouring molten metal into a mold, while the items from Cameroon are hand-carved in wood.
Ms. Adeoye herself designed objects covered in a woven material made from dried and dyed plant stalks, which is typically used in Nigeria to create mats.
In February, Ms. Adeoye returned to Nigeria to finalize preparations for the show. While there, she visited her 88-year-old grandfather, Remi Odubanjo, who had inspired an award-winning walker she designed named RemX.
“My grandfather disliked the walkers we bought him; they looked clinical, an acute reminder of his reduced autonomy,” she said. “He would always hide them.” She wrapped metal in aso oke, a traditional handwoven Nigerian fabric used for celebratory attire, and covered the frame in water hyacinth, which grows abundantly in Nigeria and resembles raffia.
With its exaggerated curves and hues of straw and magenta, RemX looks regal, like the elaborate walking sticks wielded by local chiefs and dignitaries. It helped her become the first African designer to clinch first prize at SaloneSatellite in 2022, where she was one of 600 participants addressing the theme “Designing for Our Future Selves.”
“I was touched by the walker,” recalled Paola Antonelli, the senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, who led the awards jury. “It was sturdy and functional, and at the same time handsome and thoughtful.”
She added, “I’ve always believed that there is no reason for utilitarian objects not to be devastatingly elegant, too.”
Much of Ms. Adeoye’s work relies on longstanding practices and natural materials. The “Talking Stools” she is presenting at “Craft West Africa,” covered in mats woven by women from Ekiti, a state in southwestern Nigeria, echo the talking drum, the instrument traditionally used for ceremonies and communications across vast distances. By turning the mats into furniture upholstery, she hopes to broaden their potential applications and markets.
She has also found inspiration in irun kiko, the technique of winding black thread tightly around small sections of hair to produce rigid, structural coiffures.
“I grew up weaving and styling people’s hair like this because I was the go-to creative person for my family and friends,” she recalled. “They’d say, ‘Ask Lani, she’s good with her hands.’ But I never thought of my craft hobbies as real skills.” Now she frequently wraps her objects in cloth or fiber, a literal reflection of what she now calls the fil rouge, or red thread, that connects her talents and interests.
It took some time. Encouraged by her family to pursue a “stable career,” she studied business at McGill University in Montreal. After graduating, she worked in Toronto as a consulting analyst at Accenture, the multinational professional services company.
“One day, I attended a design trade show during my lunch break where I saw a chair that looked like a functional piece of art, and up until that point, I didn’t really know that furniture could be multiple things,” she recalled.
She enrolled in an interior design studies program at Parsons, receiving an associate of applied science degree in 2014. She opened Studio-Lani in 2015, and in 2017 took first prize at a key exhibition in New York City for emerging international designers called Launch Pad, run by the company WantedDesign.
Ms. Adeoye “excels in making her process accessible and inspiring to others,” said Claire Pijoulat, who founded WantedDesign with Odile Hainaut.
“Her ability to articulate her vision and the story behind her work adds a personal and engaging layer to her designs. And she is certainly making a significant impact.”
Ms. Adeoye believes that design’s transformative power is linked to the crafts used to produce it, and she wants the global community to recognize that Africans and members of the African diaspora also contribute to this narrative in a meaningful way.
She gets “quite frustrated” with “the way the media amplifies negative or struggle stories that don’t position people in a place of dignity,” she said. “This ultimately affects the way you perceive their culture.”
Her goal for “Craft West Africa” is to amplify the region’s rich traditions and potential.
“Through art, craft and design,” she said, “we can present a more balanced view that moves beyond the one-dimensional narrative we are so accustomed to seeing.”
The post Following a Nigerian Thread, a Designer Unwraps an African Region appeared first on New York Times.
