Ijoko Ore Collection - Walnut/Akoriko
The ‘Ijoko Ore Collection’ is a home furniture series that examines the material heritage, iconography, and sociology present at the site of communal West African gathering. The inaugural work to this collection Ijoko Ore - Stool (2025) has been exhibited internationally at Design Week Lagos 2025 as part of the Design and Innovation Exhibition.
This collection extends the archive of makers who employ motifs around hair patterns, kinship and fabric to portray thematic narratives centered around craft and communal living. At the 2026 edition of the Design + Innovation Exhibition (D+IE) at Design Week Lagos, Makinde is exhibiting two works from the ‘Ijoko Ore Collection’ - Side Table With Wooden Top (2026) and Side Table With Glass Top (2026).
Formally, the works presented emerge from an ongoing study of the illarun—the traditional three-legged Yoruba wooden comb—and its relationship to ritualized practices of hair making, care, and community. Drawing from the formal language of the illarun as well as the resonant sounds of the ilàrí and gángan (talking drum), the works are built through precise joinery systems that rely not on adhesive, but on tension and a methodical assembly process derived from three core structural components.
This construction approach foregrounds the intelligence of traditional woodworking while emphasizing durability and modularity. Across the series, craftsmanship becomes both process and philosophy: an inquiry into labor, repetition, and the transformative potential of a singular material. The production methods intentionally bridge studio craft and industrial design thinking, allowing each object to exist simultaneously as furniture, sculpture, and cultural archive.
Conceptually, the {Ijoko Ore - side tables} expand on the story of two sisters; one who sits to get her hair done and the other who stands to do her hair. The image of these two sisters is a common sight across many African sidewalks and living rooms. No matter where these two are set up, it is known that for those few hours of hairmaking, an atmosphere of vulnerability and care is bound and established.
In the Nigerian version of this scene, we see a stool (ijoko/akpoti), one three legged comb (Illari/illarun) and two sisters or friends (awon arabinrin meji/awon ore meji). As seen in Meleko Mokgosi’s Bread, Butter, and Power 2018 painting series, a still image of these same sisters is painted in Botswana: a stool, an Afro pick, and two sisters.
