Environmental Contamination Artefacts

Olaniyi Studio studies the relations of environmental art, architecture, law, and the anthropological relations of communities environmental habitats and belief systems. What are the ways in which these disciplines can protect their rights while also showing the value in the forms of knowledge that they live by in their environments. How are they affected by climate change, and who is responsible for the shifts, both climate, and economic, that they face as territorial boundaries are crossed for the exploitation of mineral, and natural resources. How can the artefact, or object act as a form of environmental law? These questions are both elements which each artefact in this series aims to question in relation to looking at environmental law of the unseen on a material scale. What is the unseen beauty in cultural perspectives, and does this beauty have to be materialised in a physical form in order to be actualised evidence in a court of environmental law? Is the tree what you see as an object (its bark, its leaves etc.) or is it a system of micro-organisms that make up the tree that also have rights of reflection and observation? Or is the tree itself a living ancestor in some cultures; how did this fusion happen, and how should this be valued in the right way? Or is it a  living embodiment of a passed ancestor? Or is the tree a number in a system of measurement, valued for its wood grain, strength, colour, and organic properties? Is measurement necessary in relation to how we value these use properties?  This collection of artefacts is the embodiment of the molecular + material + mental ecologies within a given environmental site of contamination. They act as a form of three-dimensional legal evidence that protects the rights to produce oxygen from a series of algal and other micro-organisms that are contaminated in various regions around the world based on mineral exploitation i.e, oil spills in the Delta region of Nigeria, Tailing Ponds in Chile, etc.  As each artefact represents new forms of experimental environmental art, scientific, and legislative representation for evidence, they also aim to encapsulate an anthropological survey of the systems of belief around entities that inhabit this water alongside the molecular species. In essence these artefacts aim to question the tensions around the unseen environmental relations that connect the cross sectors of ecological, perceptual and legislative systems through the living presence of the artefact, itself, themselves or ourselves.

Artefact Design Formula

Each artefact is created using the process of material collection infused with anthropological practices, and beliefs of the inhabitants in each given site of contamination. The raw contamination is usually already infused into the the soil, organic matter, water, or animal, which means that in order to fossilise or encapsulate it, it has to go through both a thermodynamic process of purification from its original environment which will isolate the contamination in order to add it into the artefacts new based made from plant skin, iron, and hydrated earth. This process of adding the contamination to its based though congelation gives the collected contamination a binder to infuse with that will allow it to be transported once all exothermic conditions have produced solidification. The decay rate of the artefact is also based on the mixture of the binder, and the process of sublimation through the dehydration of its H2O which recycles back into the troposphere. Organic elemental and aesthetic multiplication is used to bring the artefact to life by using the process of sonic fermentation of herbal plant extracts, and additives from the site to mix with the contaminated percentage of the solidified mixture. This process produces a chemical reaction of colour acid stain on the artefact based on the properties of the contamination, and alkaline plant extracts. This reaction is conceptualised as the visual conversation between the entities in which inhabitant both elements. As the artefact decays this conversation will visually change, transform, and respond to its new location. This same design formula is applied to each architectural bone artefact minus the process of process contamination isolation and re-infusion.

SERIES: xi[EC] = For more information about each artefact in this collection you can reach   out to our archive at - collect@olaniyi.studio

Architectural Bone Artefacts

What does architecture mean post building or structure, and how can an architectural artefact connect to a built structure while being absent of any physical connection? In this series of architectural bone artefacts Olaniyi Studio aims experiment with this architectural extension that accounts for how a designed environmental object has an affect on the program, circulation, and digestion of a built architectural structure though its internal properties. This is an architectural study of the extended mind, and the experimentation of designing environmental artefacts that are made in conjunction with an architectural structure with a function to protect the spirits embodied within the architectural structure, both human and non human. This act of architectural performance extends beyond environmental design models of climate simulations  (co2, wind, thermal), and extends into the unseen yet embodied performance of the relational epistomologies in many places throughout the sites in which the material artefacts are made. What is the architecture in which environmental entities live in, and why is this important from an anthropological viewpoint? As there is no one answer to this question, allow the question to answer itself in the asking, which means that when you ask it to yourself allow your mental ecology to reflect on it, and provide the answer. Each artefact has its own architectural formula, and provides an apparatus  for contemplation on different environmental elements which is mixed within its material DNA. Each architectural bone artefact aims to function in both internal and external environmental spaces. The artefact can be buried underground to decay naturally, or dissolved in water over long durations of time allowing for its layers of skin to shed. These artefacts react to humidity, uv light, wind, and thermal conditions allowing for them to adapt based on the environmental elements of a given internal or external environment.

SERIES: ioX[AB] = For more information or collection inquires about each architectural bone artefact  in this collection,  reach out to our archive at - collect@olaniyi.studio

Anthropology Field Research Artefacts

Anthropological research is one of the essential components of Olaniyi Studios research, and design formula. We seek to create research by traveling to diverse locations, and showing the diversity in belief systems, environments, and the artefacts that are produced when these are combined together by the inhabitants. In this collection of artefacts we aim to showcase can array of products that have been made within a given research location with the intention to share their beauty, meanings, and their importance to the crafts people that made them. Textiles, utensils, architectural components, medicines, field research books, art objects, garments, and musical instruments make up a few of the artefacts that show how different environments, and cultures create different tools to connect to their surroundings. Each artefacts works as a cultural exchange component, that informs our studio while encapsulating our field research expeditions, and populating our environmental tools archive.

AA SERIES: xi/[BERBER]I9io = Was made in collaboration with a wide range of women weavers in Algeria and Morocco. It aims to show the the semiotic expressions of their culture as well as design expertise. For more information about each artefact you can reach out to our archive at - collect@olaniyi.studio