Taiye Idahor was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. Where she attended the well known Yaba College of Technology in Lagos. Where she majored in sculpture before earning a Higher National Diploma (HND) in 2007. Idahor has made great contributions to the area of identity theory and the use of hair as a visual language by women during the last few year. She highlights how trade, beauty, the environment, and globalization all play a role in shaping a woman’s identity in today’s culture in Africa, particularly in Lagos, Nigeria, where she has spent most of her life.
Idahor explores layers of subjects that are intimate while large in size intimate using collage, drawing, sculpture, and mixed media. She expresses her identity as a female African in the larger her body of work. Hair is a recurring theme in her work that speaks of the different symbolic elements of the female. Filled with a myriad of mixed media, such as tracing paper and newspapers, Idahor’s pieces vary from sculptures, collages, and drawing. Expressing different forms and identities of the woman.
Through an emphasis on hair, her artistic work delves into the challenges of identity as a woman of African descent, interpreting its symbolic reflections on history, tradition, memory, globalization, and inequity. Her attention to hair points to a relationship with her family, ethnicity, and lineage. Join host, Jonas Schwarz Lausten on understanding the journey that is inspiration to completion of a body of work by Idahor.
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Music is from Pixabay and the theme song “Start Again” is by Nigerian singer/songwriter Falana. Sculpture on podcast cover by Alimi Adewale.
