Àdúrà Lẹ́rẹ̀ | Orry Shenjobi

( There is reward in prayer )

Àdúrà Lẹ́rẹ̀ carves out a new branch within the work of Orry Shenjobi. Here, the languages of traditional Nigerian craft enter into dialogue with the artist’s multidisciplinary and product design practice to create a site-specific sculptural installation. Sustainability is at the heart of Àdúrà Lẹ́rẹ̀, examining how design systems are shaped by use, memory and culture. Shenjobi works in collaboration with traditional carvers from Benin and Ibadan, and positions Nigerian design systems as viable, future-facing frameworks, addressing the slow erasure of traditional practices.

The exhibition

“Prayer is the foundation of everything.”

Act I

Ibadan, A Cultural Renaissance

By most historical accounts, Ibadan is the fastest-growing Yoruba town, both in population and in land mass. The ancient city’s undulating hilly landscape, forest vegetation, and defensible terrain made it a natural refuge for warriors, traders, settlers and refugees from across Nigeria and beyond. That same openness made Ibadan one of the most intense sites of missionary activity in the 19th and 20th centuries. With the founding of Nigeria’s first University College in 1948, the impression from 1960 onwards was that a pioneering cultural renaissance had begun in Ibadan.

It is within this premise that Orry Shenjobi launches Àdúrà Lẹ́rẹ̀ at New Culture Studios, a haven for artists founded in 1967 by Demas Nwoko, a member of the historic Zaria Art Society and the Mbari Club. During her residency in February 2026, Shenjobi undertook in-depth archival research on the history of Ibadan, traditional craftsmanship, and her Yoruba and Benin roots.

Act II

Ancestral Communion

The commanding feature of Àdúrà Lẹ́rẹ̀ is The Dome, an architectural installation nestled on the hilltop of New Culture Studios that merges Shenjobi’s spiritual grounding, Yoruba and Benin design traditions, and the spatial language of Catholic architecture, in affinity with Nwoko’s Dominican Chapel.

The Dome opens with a monumental wooden portal, Door of Transition and Honour. Inside, a circular fence of breeze-block is punctuated with carvings of the fourteen Stations of the Cross, told through indigenous symbols and motifs. The inner sanctuary is built from bamboo, holding twenty-six hand-engraved stained-glass panels dedicated to women of the Bible. Through prayers literally embedded into furniture, Shenjobi provides not only a place to sit but vessels of cultural memory and spirituality. This is ancestral communion.

Act III

Design as a Living Memory

Àdúrà Lẹ́rẹ̀ draws from the design philosophies of Benin and Yoruba vernacular architecture, connecting with sustainable, context-sensitive design practices that respect cultural and environmental heritage. Working in collaboration with traditional carvers from Benin and Ibadan, Shenjobi grounds the project in co-creation, inherited methodology, and locally sourced material: “what we inherit, what we preserve and what we choose to build from it.”

The Dome also creates a bond as we wonder: who may have sat here before us? It is a question that unites us across time and place.