Nifemi Marcus-Bello
Designer
Nifemi Marcus-Bello (b. 1988) is a Lagos, Nigeria-based designer. Recognized for his community-oriented, ethnographic approach to design and its adjacencies, Marcus-Bello exploits material constraints in pursuit of new forms. His interest in manufacturing scales, production availability, and design anthropology have led to accolades from Hublot / LVMH, who awarded Marcus-Bello the prestigious Hublot Design Prize in 2022. That same year, Marcus-Bello’s LM Stool was acquired by the Design Museum, London. In 2023, his Friction Ridge Bench was acquired by The Art Institute of Chicago. At Design Miami/ 2023, he was awarded the Curators Choice: Design for Good Award.
Exhibited at DESIGN MIAMI. 2023 TM Moon was made especially for Oríkì (Act II): Tales by Moonlight, a presentation of functional sculptures by artist and designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello. Named for the Nigerian Television Authority's beloved children’s TV program of the same name, Tales by Moonlight highlights the personal and collective narratives at the core of the designer’s interactions with region- and need-specific craft communities in and around his hometown of Lagos, Nigeria. Marcus-Bello began interrogating issues of globalization, production chains, and supply-and-demand dynamics after developing a relationship with an autoparts foundry in Lagos. Each question he posed—what is a material’s role in society? How does it get here? Who is in charge of its life cycle?—led back to a cottage industry that has emerged across West Africa to fabricate the parts needed for the second-cycle cars that arrive in the region from the US and Europe. Marcus-Bello’s exploration of this industry reflects the politics of use in both local and global markets. Through his relationship with these autoparts casters, Marcus-Bello was exposed to a material-specific craft that underpins a significant mechanism of transport in Nigeria; one which he has integrated into his own practice, collaborating with the same craftsmen to help realize these new works. Together, they have produced a body of work that pays homage to the nation’s rich history of craft while highlighting the designer’s central interest in process and traditional, often vernacular, methods of fabrication. In this collection of formally-related typologies, a series of cones, planes, discs, and bowls abstractly reference forms often found in the formalized industrial design of autoparts, thus reframing the cultural, economic, and material genesis of the work(s). Materials: Sand Cast Aluminium
