Reloading the Canon
Jomo Tariku’s Meedo chair was inspired by the afro comb (image: Wexler Gallery).
When studying at the University of Kansas in the early-1990s, Ethiopian-American designer Jomo Tariku recalls visiting the campus’s library to read its collection of design publications. “But I didn’t see my culture, my thinking, my approach being represented in all those amazing magazines,” he explains. “So I said to myself, ‘Well, I want it in there.’”
Now, some 30 years on, Tariku has gone some way towards addressing this imbalance. Juxtaposed, Tariku’s first extensive solo show, serves as a retrospective of its subject’s Virginia-based furniture design studio, as well as a reflection on the biases and omissions that pockmark design discourse in the Global North. “Everybody keeps saying, ‘Design is a global language,’” explains Tariku, who grew up in Kenya before moving to the US to study design, “so I wanted to create something that represents me and my traditions. The goal of expanding the canon and making design a truly global language is to show that design from Africa, from the indigenous people of Australia, from South America, is just as good as everybody else’s.”
Tariku’s Nyala chair and stool were inspired by the curled horns of the nyala antelope from southern Africa (image: Wexler Gallery).
Hosted by Philadelphia’s Wexler Gallery, Juxtaposed displays an assortment of Tariku’s furniture designs on plinths, all of which been placed beneath design objects and ephemera whose provenance lies outside of Tariku’s studio, but which has inspired his work: Dogon and Ashanti stools from Burkina Faso and Ghana, a birthing chair designed by Ethiopian artist Adiskidan Ambaye, and a graphic representation of the curled horns of a nyala antelope from southern Africa. While Tariku studied industrial design within a North American context and sees his work as subscribing to many of its tenets and strictures (“It's kind of subliminally driven into you, ‘Keep it simple stupid.’ That solves a lot of problems.”), his practice draws on other design traditions in equal measure. His Boraatii stool, for instance, takes its curved form from carved wooden headrests made by Oromo artists to protect a user’s hair during sleep, while his plywood Kebero stool owes its form to its namesake drum, which is produced and played in east Africa. “I've always spoken about how my African heritage has influenced my work,” Tariku explains. “With [Juxtaposed], I thought why not give people a visual journey through it?”
Tariku’s Boraatii stool, Jimma chair and Ashanti stool displayed alongside historical examples of the typologies they represent (image: Wexler Gallery).
The result is a show in which Tariku’s contemporary designs, many of which are now held in the permanent collections of museums such as LACMA and The Met, are placed in dialogue with the past forms that shaped their development. Tariku’s version of a wooden Jimma chair, for instance, is displayed alongside a historical example of the typology. The Ethiopian original is ornately carved and curvaceous, whereas Tariku’s take is smoother with stricter lines, but the dialogue between the two is clear – as is the debt that Tariku feels to the historical designers, many unnamed, whose work appears alongside his in the show. “If these things had not been created by these great craftspeople, then I, as a designer from the same continent, would not have a career,” Tariku explains. “I feel it’s up to me to show that other people have done all this great work. I am just a current torch bearer, passing this great tradition forward.”
Words Oli Stratford