BIOGRAPHY
Aderemi Adegbite (b. 1982, Lagos) is a self‑taught inter‑disciplinary artist, photographer, poet and curator based in Lagos, Nigeria. He is the founder and artistic director of the Vernacular Art‑space Laboratory Foundation, launched in 2015 as a collaborative community‑run platform for multimedia, literary, scientific, and public art practices. He established in 2021 the Tutùọlá Institute, a registered intercultural institute promoting Yoruba language, heritage, and decolonial art discourse globally.
Adegbite served as curatorial assistant on the travelling exhibition Africa: See You, See Me (2011–13), and curated the Iwaya Community Art Festival, and now, a Biennial (2016 - 2021). He led Communal Re‑Imagination (2018–22), and was subject curator at the John Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History (2019–22). His exhibitions include The Path of Those Whom You Bestowed Favour (CCA Lagos, 2022), City and The Missing Link (Dresden, 2017), and N65 (Goethe‑Institut Lagos and Dakar, 2012). His poetry collection Romance and Reasons was published in 2017.
PROJECT TITLE
Adornment and Identity
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Adornment and Identity: Threads of Return is a multidisciplinary exhibition that explores fashion as both a social phenomenon and an artistic language for shaping and preserving cultural identity. At the heart of the project is the recognition that the sartorial style of Afro-Brazilian acarajé sellers in Salvador, Bahia, is deeply rooted in Yoruba traditions, particularly the Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́ festival, where elaborate costumes, headwraps, and adornments are used to honor women’s spiritual and social power.
The layered white garments, vibrant textiles, and symbolic accessories worn by these women in Brazil are not mere adaptations but resonant echoes of Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́ aesthetics carried across the Atlantic during the era of enslavement and reinterpreted in new cultural contexts.
The exhibition also reflects on Yoruba body adornments—tribal marks, tattoos, and scarification—as parallel archives of identity and belonging.
Like clothing, these inscriptions transform the body into a cultural text, one that resists erasure and affirms heritage. By juxtaposing Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́- inspired dress traditions with embodied practices, the project highlights how Yoruba sartorial knowledge has endured, migrated, and regenerated across continents.
Through the works of selected artists, including performance, textile, sculpture, and live craft demonstrations, the exhibition emphasizes that sartorial traditions are not static relics but dynamic expressions constantly reshaped by social realities and personal narratives.
Hosted at IlaBar in Osogbo, the project will serve as a cultural bridge, inviting audiences to encounter the intersections of Yoruba aesthetics, Afro-Brazilian heritage, and global fashion histories. It aims to spark dialogue on heritage preservation, the politics of adornment, and the transformative potential of dress as a site of memory and identity negotiation in a globalized world.