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ARTIST + ANTHROPOLOGIST = NIGERIA
[8×10 in, 20×25 cm - 372 pages / p-london-2016]
Embarking upon the first art + anthropology experiment, Yussef Agbo-Ola travelled throughout Nigeria to study human ecology. This research investigated how humans connect with diverse natural environments. He aimed to visually depict how the value of trade + belief systems differ in the lives of urban city dwellers compared to those inhabiting communities, with a less developed natural landscape. Applying an experimental approach to photographic journalism this archive of his journey is a frozen capsule of Nigerian culture from an artistic + anthropological perspective. It shall serve as both a vista of cultural awareness, and a catalyst for discovery.
Core Research Components = -Cultural Values + Architecture as Sacred Art
-Food Exchange + Indigenous Medicinal Beliefs
-Ritual Textiles + Egun Egun Dance
-Ecosystems + Cosmology
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ARTIST + ANTHROPOLOGIST = DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
[8×10 in, 20×25 cm - 368 pages / p-london-2020]
Embarking upon the sixth art + anthropology experiment, Yussef Agbo-Ola travelled throughout the mountains, rivers, and cities of the Dominican Republic to study human ecology. This research investigated how humans connect with diverse natural environments. He aimed to visually depict architectonic poetry, farming systems, medicinal artefacts, market exchange, and how belief systems differ in the lives of urban city dwellers compared to those inhabiting communities, with a less developed natural landscape. Applying an experimental approach to photographic journalism this archive of his journey is a frozen capsule of Dominican culture from an artistic + anthropological perspective. It shall serve as both a vista of cultural awareness, and a catalyst for discovery.
Core Research Components = -Sacred Architectural Symbols + Cultural Values
-Architectural Decay + Indigenous Medicinal Beliefs
-Black River Shrines + Mineral Exploitation
-Textile Poetry + Frozen Snake Skin
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ARTIST + ANTHROPOLOGIST = MOROCCO
[8×10 in, 20×25 cm - 400 pages / p-london-2019]
Embarking upon the third art + anthropology experiment, Yussef Agbo-Ola travelled throughout the mountains, deserts, and cities of Morocco to study human ecology. This research investigated how humans connect with diverse natural environments. He aimed to visually depict the nomadic lifestyles of the Berbers, paleomicrobiology fossils, medicinal market exchange, and how belief systems differ in the lives of urban city dwellers compared to those inhabiting communities, with a less developed natural landscape. Applying an experimental approach to photographic journalism this archive of his journey is a frozen capsule of Moroccan culture from an artistic + anthropological perspective. It shall serve as both a vista of cultural awareness, and a catalyst for discovery.
Core Research Components = -Sacred Architectural Symbols + Cultural Values
-Nomadic Navigation + Desert Botany
-Ceremonial Garments + Desertification
-Cosmological Textiles + Microbiology Fossils
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ARCHITECT AS SHAMAN
[6×9 in, 15×23 cm - 248 pages / p-london-2018]
With the rise of cities, and urban agglomeration this experimental book aims to document, and explore an array of research accounting for living, and extinct autochthonous cultures, and their anthropological view on human/nature connectivity through art, architectural creation, experimental discourse, and medicinal practices. The aim is to question the role of the architect, architecture, or experimental forms of medicinal architecture in a changing geosphere, in the light that humans can be animals, animals can be humans, and microbes can be humans.
Core Research Components = -Epistemological Ashing + Micro Medicine
-Architecture + Shamanism
-Cherokee Tribe + Biological Plasma
-Material Science + Rica Rica
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BOTANIC ARCHITECTURAL FORM SKIN TEXTURE
[8×10 in, 20×25 cm - 320 pages / p-london-2019]
Human experience in relation to the perceptual cognition of materials on all scales of botanical life is the conceptual framework of this artefact. Micro-botanics, and molecular plant matter all have different surface textures that can inspire architectural, sculptural, and environmental design. When we use haptic ways of perceiving these textures we can create, and design experiences with them that can affect human perceptions in relation to empathy, beauty, and scale. This can be understood as a component philosophy of molecular emptiness for design experimentation. This experimental photographic essay is an art artefact that aims to exhibit this phenomena by which the change relating to form, skin, and texture of botanic architectures adapt to climatic fluctuations, seasonal growth and decay.
Design Components = Botanical Architectural Form + Bark Skin
Micro-Botanical Textures + Geometric Soil Skin
Lichens Spores + Fungi Decay
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INFINITESIMAL ARCHITECTURE [I]
[8×10 in, 20×25 cm - 208 pages / p-london-2021]
This collection of photographs looks at the geometric diversity, atmospheric compositions, and structural complexities found in a microscope world of matter, liquid, blood, mucus and gas. Using a glass slide as a living and environmental responsive apparatus this collection composed these elements into visual architectural soliloquies that depict an architectural beauty that is invisible to the normal humans optical perspective. Micro-organisms, and molecular matter all have different surface textures that can inspire architectural, and sculptural objects. While taking this into account this experimental photographic essay aims to exhibit this phenomena and unveil the environmental importance and aesthetic ambiguities sequestered within infinitesimal architecture.
Core Research Components = -Molecular Architecture + Living Texture
-Unseen Landscapes + Blood Mountains
-Experimental Entropic Art + Silent Scale
-Nano Textiles + Interior Design
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ARTIST + ANTHROPOLOGIST = HAITI
[8×10 in, 20×25 cm - 372 pages / p-london-2019]
Embarking upon the second art + anthropology experiment, Yussef Agbo-Ola travelled throughout the islands of Haiti to study human ecology. This research investigated how humans connect with diverse natural environments. He aimed to visually depict the dense flows of market exchange, and how belief systems differ in the lives of urban city dwellers compared to those inhabiting communities, with a less developed natural landscape. Applying an experimental approach to photographic journalism this archive of his journey is a frozen capsule of Haitian culture from an artistic + anthropological perspective. It shall serve as both a vista of cultural awareness, and a catalyst for discovery.
Core Research Components = -Cultural Values + Architectural Symbols
-Environmental Contamination + Plant Seeds
-Ecosystems + VooDoo Artefacts
-Ritual Textiles + Deforestation
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ARTIST + ANTHROPOLOGIST = ATACAMA
[8×10 in, 20×25 cm - 480 pages / p-london-2020]
Embarking upon the fifth art + anthropology experiment, Yussef Agbo-Ola travelled throughout the desert, lagoons, caves, and communities of the Atacama Desert to study human ecology. This research investigated how humans connect with diverse natural environments. He aimed to visually depict a local architectural taxonomy, medicinal artefacts, sacred geology, market exchange, salt geometric formations and belief systems in the lives of local dwellers inhabiting its natural landscape. Applying an experimental approach to photographic journalism this archive of his journey is a frozen capsule of Chilean culture from an artistic + anthropological perspective. It shall serve as both a vista of cultural awareness, and a catalyst for discovery.
Core Research Components = -Cave Houses + Indigenous Medicinal Beliefs
-Architectural Tectonics + Mining Exploitation
-Geometric Salt Formations + Mountain Choirs
-Stone Geoglyphs + Atacameños Semiotics
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ARTIST + ANTHROPOLOGIST = PUERTO RICO
[8×10 in, 20×25 cm - 246 pages / p-london-2020]
Embarking upon the forth art + anthropology experiment, Yussef Agbo-Ola travelled throughout the jungles, rivers, and cities of Puerto Rico to study human ecology. This research investigated how humans connect with diverse natural environments. He aimed to visually depict architectonic poetry, medicinal artefacts, architectural decay, market exchange, and how belief systems differ in the lives of urban city dwellers compared to those inhabiting communities, with a less developed natural landscape. Applying an experimental approach to photographic journalism this archive of his journey is a frozen capsule of Puerto Rican culture from an artistic + anthropological perspective. It shall serve as both a vista of cultural awareness, and a catalyst for discovery.
Core Research Components = -Organic Material Oxidation + Farm Infrastructure
-Sacred Architectural Symbols + Cultural Values
-Temple Skin + Indigenous Medicinal Beliefs
-Architectural Decay + Urban Semiotics
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ENVIRONMENTAL POETICS = [NOT HEAD, NOT BODY]
[6×9 in, 22×15 cm - 200 pages / p-london-2020]
NOT HEAD / NOT BODY ARCHITECTURAL INSTALLATION POEM, AGBO-OLA 2020
Core Research Components = -Experimental Poetics + Environmental Cognition
-Art of Living + Architectural Anthropology
-Atmospheric Aesthetics + Symbolic Art Theory
-Intrinsic Statistics + Observational River Pathology
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ENVIRONMENTAL MINERAL PLANT SKINS [I]
[8×10 in, 20×25 cm - 284 pages / p-london-2021]
A collection of alchemical artefacts as the embodiment of the molecular + material + mental ecologies within a given environment. In this collection of material experiments, Yussef Agbo-Ola used organic material science to create an archive of plant based architectural soil skins as art works. They highlight the diversity of different soils with their mineral properties, colour, and textures. This edition of experimentation took place in diverse, and extreme natural environments using local plants, water, plant skins, plant extracts, and medicinal dyes. These materials were locally sourced, and act as a catalyst for connecting cultures, and sensory exchanges through material architectural alchemy.
Core Research Components = -Material Science + Environmental Memory
-Plant Skin + Nansemond River H2O
-Nigerian Soil Samples + Natural Fibres
-Mineral Extracts + Geological Dust
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INFINITESIMAL ARCHITECTURE [II]
[8×10 in, 20×25 cm - 208 pages / p-london-2021]
This collection of photographs looks at the geometric diversity, atmospheric compositions, and structural complexities found in a microscope world of matter, liquid, blood, mucus and gas. Using a glass slide as a living and environmental responsive apparatus this collection composed these elements into visual architectural soliloquies that depict an architectural beauty that is invisible to the normal humans optical perspective. Micro-organisms, and molecular matter all have different surface textures that can inspire architectural, and sculptural objects. While taking this into account this experimental photographic essay aims to exhibit this phenomena and unveil the environmental importance and aesthetic ambiguities sequestered within infinitesimal architecture.
Core Research Components = -Molecular Architecture + Living Texture
-Unseen Landscapes + Blood Mountains
-Experimental Entropic Art + Silent Scale
-Nano Textiles + Interior Design
