Peju Layiwola


Peju Layiwola is an art Historian and visual artist from Nigeria who works in a variety of media and genre. She is listed as a "21-st Century Avant-Garde" in the book Art Cities of the Future published by Phaidon Press She is currently a Professor of Art and Art history at the University of Lagos and has been described as a "multitalented artist."

Biography

Born Adepeju Olowu, Layiwola is the daughter of Babatunde Olatokunbo Olowu and Princess Elizabeth Olowu. Her paternal grandfather was a business magnate who established the first cinema and printing press in Benin and the Delta region in the old Midwestern state. Her maternal granddfather, meanwhile, was Oba Akenzua II, king of Benin, who reigned from 1933 to 1978. She is also a cousin to DJ P Tee Money.
Layiwola has built on the artistic tradition of her mother, Princess Elizabeth Olowu, the first female bronze caster in Nigeria, a status she achieved through resilience in a culture that is very patriarchal. Her dual Yoruba and Edo heritage and history has inspired her professional practice.

Professional background

Layiwola received a BA from University of Benin in 1988, and an MA and PhD from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 2004. She was nominated partner for the US
State Department smARTpower project initiative by the US Secretary of State in 2012. Her works
comprising installation and prints have been exhibited in Nigeria and outside the continent. She is the founder of the Women and Youth Art Foundation, an organisation committed to empowering women,
young girls and youth through the arts. She has also served on art juries. Layiwola, who initially began working with metal, now explores a broad range of media that engage with history, memory and cultural expropriation.
In her most ambitious solo exhibition, Benin1897.com:Art and the Restitution Question, Layiwola's return to the notorious British Expedition of 1897 and the plundering of prized cultural artifacts looted from the bedchamber of her forebears brings together her personal and communal history. Her other collaborative public project, Whose Centenary? is also informed by history and the archives. She gave a talk at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2019, and one at the CAA-Getty International Program in 2018 on her work.
Of her work and inspiration, she says "I got a lot of inspiration from my mother, having seen her as a young girl casting in metal. So, I opted for metal design at the University of Benin, which was broader spectrum from what she studied because she did metal casting under sculpture. But I specialize in metal design, which incorporates jewelry production, metal casting etc."
Layiwola's art projects and mentorship programs have been described as having had impact on generations of younger artists around Nigeria.

Advocacy for return of stolen art

Layiwola has led public advocacy for the return of art works stolen from Benin during the Punitive Expedition of 1897.

Selected writings