I felt that we needed something iconic that would change our city, change the way we see ourselves and also change the way the world sees us.

We told ourselves that we were not just Nigerians but Africans and that we wanted to make the continent proud.

It’s about beautifully made, bright, colorful, expressive things that have a story behind them. It’s about art, clothing, and design that’s unique and beautiful. It’s African but contemporary

I am surrounded by beautiful products with great history culturally and was always inspired by our own version of Luxury. I felt we needed a platform that challenged us into making traditional luxury objects covetable by ourselves and the rest of the world. Also I looked around and saw that we have great taste and love of Luxury but not many people were investing in retail in a formal way. I am also aware that Luxury Retail is becoming very experiential and that creating our own unique version of luxury retail will be interesting educative and inspiring.

We will open people’s eyes to the incredible creative renaissance that is growing in Africa and how seamlessly it functions as a part of the global conversation of style.

The beauty of being a child of the diaspora is that we are able to reinvent ourselves and what it means to be African.

When you are African, you speak to a world that has an existing view of who and what you are. You walk with this kind of label. So for me, the Biennale was an opportunity to both talk about the label, to confront it in a way, but to also show underneath how similar we are.

I show that it is important to value what we have and that through innovation, we can wear clothing that tells the African story in a way that is not Western but truly modern.

Already proud of being African and had a problem with the fact we couldn’t be ourselves.

We are Africans, we are inherently creative people

Rather than teasing the buyers, we may blame the society in which they lived for setting up a situation where the purchase of ornate cabinets felt psychologically necessary and rewarding, where respect was dependent on baroque displays. Rather than a tale of greed, the history of luxury could more accurately be read as a record of emotional trauma. It is the legacy of those who have felt pressured by the disdain of others to add an extraordinary amount to their bare selves in order to signal that they too may lay a claim to love.

What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue. A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories- prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal.

"I think it’s important for us to own our own stories as Black people and how we build".

"The show represents a journey from West to East and North to South, but importantly a narrative of Africa then to Africa now.”