Women around the world had to wait for ages to have equal rights, let alone to have their strength and power recognized and celebrated. Although the Yoruba-Nago people of southwestern Nigeria, Benin, and Togo made the female community feel seen by following the Gèlèdé Tradition for ages. The vibrant public masquerade pays tribute to female power, fertility, and crucial social organization.
Giving the tradition more glow and life, the Salù Iwadi Studio based across Lagos, Dakar, and Marrakech has introduced the Gèlèdé lamp collection. The lamps maintain the studio’s practice of blending experienced craftsmanship with ancestral presence to create contemporary design pieces.
The Gèlèdé lamp collection reveals three sculptural, almost totemic lamps that appear as smooth, oval hollows decorated with eye-like disks. These disks are responsible for radiating a warm, golden glow from within.
The light seems to be captivated inside, as if getting ready to enter the surroundings, giving a womb-like presence. Accidental? No, this is where the celebration of social balance and continuity is reflected.
The GLD01 lamp adopts a vertical alignment of three vessels stacked one on top of the other, showcasing the continuity of life from ancestor to mother and then to the child. The next is GLD02, which features a single vessel resolving the generational distincts into a single, interconnected presence. The last piece is called GLD03, which channelizes the same expression in a deeper conceptual weight and presence.
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The luminaires are composed of carved wooden vessels that reference the womb or the ‘ori,’ which is the Yoruba conception of the head as the “seat of destiny”. Each of these vessels is pierced by sand-case brass spirals that compress and filter the light, releasing it outward in a deliberate, measured glow that references time spent in the dark. It anchors the work to Ayé, the realm through which life, ancestry, and cosmic force circulate.
In Yoruba, the word for light “Ìmólẹ́ ” reaches beyond illumination. It encompasses hope, ancestral presence, the arrival of guidance, and the quiet dispersal of
darkness.– Salù Iwadi Studio
Each of the lamps serves as a testament of preserving memory while embodying the meaning of life. The light coming out of these lamps fills the room with a light that carries deeper beliefs and meanings. More than mere lamps, these luminaires by Salù Iwadi Studio are a statement, honoring female figures of a community.
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