In the winter of 2022, I met Irene Meneghetti, a furniture restorer and conservator, during an artist residency in Marseille, France. We immediately connected over our shared love for craftsmanship and history. While I created new objects and architecture, she worked on preserving objects at the end of their lifespan. She invited me to Paris, where we spent what little time we had exploring museums and exhibitions. I came from a place obsessed with creating the new, and she came from a place obsessed with praising the old—Lagos and Paris. In Paris, we visited antique markets, and I ogled all the well-built and well-preserved furniture that still had a long life ahead. The contemporary furniture stores sold historically famous design pieces and replicas, while the museums showcased antiques once owned by royal lineages. I couldn’t help but wonder, “Where do all the new furniture makers sell their work?”
In the spring of 2023, I invited Irene to Lagos, confident that she would love what she saw. Our conversation seemed to pick up right where we had left off. As we walked through markets and attended exhibitions, she kept wondering, “Where was all the old?” The truth is, we Nigerians are not invested in showcasing our family’s property. Instead, we have living museums tucked away in the storerooms of our village homes, relatives’ warehouses and dormant, stuffy rooms. We are far more interested in displaying the new pieces we’ve acquired because they symbolize growth—an attribute so coveted by any young nation. There’s nothing wrong with this perspective; the issue lies in the steps we take toward it. When we look at the furniture being produced today, frustration, poor quality, and lack of craftsmanship are evident in the joints, finishes, and balance of the objects. Why is my grandparent’s dresser still standing stubbornly strong, while the new dresser is already missing a handle? I feared that if we kept building the way we are, our children would have nothing to store in their attics. What if we taught a workshop that unearthed traditional carpentry methods and paired them with contemporary design? We could call it something like “Roots & Resilience”.
With the support of the French Embassy, we structured a workshop and included a research phase. This phase unraveled the history of the timber industry in Nigeria and gave us a holistic understanding of why things fall apart. Wood played a vital role in building kingdoms in Nigeria, particularly in the Benin Kingdom, where timber was used for pyramid roofs with wood shingles. Wood has also been crucial in Nigerian cultural ceremonies—among the Yoruba people, for example, intricate wood carvings appear on sculptures and masks used in religious rituals. Sacred trees were believed to hold spiritual significance, serving as dwellings for gods and ancestral spirits. Protecting such sites once meant preserving local biodiversity.
This changed in 1782, when the timber industry grew alongside shifts in religious practices. The forests of Nigeria—home to over 560 tree species—came to be seen as resources rather than sanctuaries. By the 1890s, commercial logging targeted four specific species, subjecting them to heavy exploitation and exportation. In the 1930s, this exploitation led to plantation forestry, the establishment of forest reserves, and the introduction of logging licenses. Yet, the system lacked proper development, and by the 1960s—known as the “golden era” of timber—Nigeria was already witnessing the industry’s decline. Of all the trees felled, only 10% were harvested; the remaining 90% were left to rot. These bad practices ultimately led to the industry’s collapse in the 1990s, when the recession hit and timber production factories shut down. Between 2002 and 2023, Nigeria lost 12% of its forest cover—this, in an era where timber production is already at an absolute low. It puts into perspective the immense damage done to the forests from the 1780s to the 1990s.
The scarcity of timber resources encouraged the importation of wood derivatives, such as plywood and particleboard. Imported in mass, these materials reduced the need for skilled carpenters and craftsmen who could work with hardwood. By 2022, Nigeria had imported over $116 million worth of plywood from China and India. This shift toward cheap, imported plywood has sacrificed furniture quality and longevity, leading to the decline in skill and craftsmanship we see today.
During our research, we visited a timber forest in Ife and were enlightened about the mismanagement of our resources. We used our findings to select timber species that were abundant and not on the endangered list—Orin Dudu, Aba, Akala, and Itara. Then, we invited eight carpenters to our programme, shared our research, and spent two weeks together fabricating a communal table and individual stools using traditional, sustainable methods. The furniture was finished with natural shea butter, a technique once used by woodcarvers before the era of imported finishes. The final pieces were exhibited and sold at Untitled, where we held discussions with the National Museum of Lagos, the participating carpenters, and furniture enthusiasts on the growing pains of our industry.
In these conversations, we questioned how to sustain the practices we had developed in the workshop and how to encourage younger generations to value quality and craftsmanship. The history of our timber industry reflects a shift in passion—from spiritual reverence and environmental preservation to scalable profit and global competition. It became clear that the best way to steer the industry in the right direction is to continuously express our love and passion for quality and craft. We must keep sharing why we spend our Saturdays at furniture stores and exhibitions, our Sundays at antique markets, and our weekdays designing, prototyping, teaching, and skillfully fabricating furniture. We do it because we love it. And if the love is there, the rest will follow.