Multidisciplinary Visual Artist and Queer Activist, Adejoke Tugbiyele
Pride month is over, but it would not be complete without including the stories of Iconic Queer Nigerian women. Document Women has spoken about many queer women before, including Pamela Adie. This time, we write about Adejoke Aderonke Tugbiyele.
Adejoke Aderonke Tugbiyele is a Queer Nigerian-American artist, architect, educator, and advocate who has won numerous awards. She was the first queer person of Nigerian heritage to speak with correspondent Vladimir Duthiers in 2014 for CNN International.
She received the prestigious Gervanne Leridon Matthias Collection's BISO 2019! Grand Prize - Prix Leridon in 2019, the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2016, was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine's 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2015, and in 2013 received the U.S. Student Fulbright Fellowship (USA/Nigeria).
She has lectured, taught, and participated in panels worldwide, including at The University of Texas at Austin, The Newark Museum of Art, The Museum of Arts and Design, The Juilliard School NYC, and Others. Her art has received praise and mention in several prestigious journals, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Transition Magazine, American Craft Magazine, The Sole Adventurer, Okay Africa, Sculpture Magazine, Art Africa Magazine, and Hyperallergic Magazine.
Tugbiyele's "Gele pride Flag" at the Brooklyn Museum. Photo culled from Tugbiyele's website
Tugbiyele is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who came to New York in the 1970s, Prof. Chief E.A. Tugbiyele, the first member of her family to go to the country, arrived in Massachusetts from Lagos, Nigeria, by boat in the 1950s and made significant contributions to the field of education while residing there through graduate study at Harvard University.
On December 4, 1977, Adejoke Aderonke Tugbiyele was born in Brooklyn, New York City. She migrated to Lagos, Nigeria, with her family as a child. She returned to New York City for high school, where she attended the High School of Art and Design.
Tugbiyele graduated from New Jersey Institute with a B.S. in architecture in 2002 and an M.F.A. from the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and an M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013.
El Anatsui, Fela Kuti, Ai Weiwei, Kara Walker, Zanele Muholi, and Rotimi Fani-Kayode are just a few artists who have affected Tugbiyele's work. In an interview with Eliot School, She discusses where she draws inspiration.
“I am inspired by concepts around 'duality' within Yoruba thought, which are similar to those found in Eastern philosophy. I weave these ideas into my practice materially and formally and currently working on developing a studio space that evokes a sense of ritual, transformation and transcendence.”
"Afro queer" Sculpture by Tugbiyele.
Tugbiyele wrote a children’s book named Find Your Center. The book features sacred geometric illustrations based on Yoruba concepts. The Nigerian non-governmental organization, Initiative for Equal Rights, which offers immediate aid to Nigerians of the LGBT community, is linked with Tugbiyele. She has represented the Solidarity Alliance for Human Rights in the United States, a grouping of Nigerian organizations fighting for human rights, gay rights, advocacy, and the fight against HIV/AIDS. Many public museums, like the Brooklyn Museum and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, have collections of her work.