Ini Archibong

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi everyone. I’m Stacy Shoemaker Rauen. I am the senior vice president of the Design Group at Emerald, which oversees ICFF and BDNY. So thank you so much for being here today. Hope everyone’s having an amazing show. I’m super honored to be sitting here with Ini Archibong. Thank you so much for joining me today. And we’re just going to have a nice little chat about his work and his career, and then we’ll open up for questions at the end. If you have any for Ini. So, Ini, how are you? I think you’re live.

Ini Archibong: Oh, we good? All right.

SSR: There’s such great legacy here with you. How did your career start? Well, let’s go back. Were you always a creative person growing up? Was this something you always wanted to do?

IA: Yeah, I was always creative. I never saw it as my career path or anything like that. It was always a part of my life, right? So, I was always building little worlds, playing with LEGO and micro machines like I think everybody did back then. And eventually, when I started going to art classes, it consumed my life. But I never took it seriously beyond just being good at art and enjoying it. And to this day, I feel lucky that it’s my career. Honestly.

SSR: When did you take it seriously? When did it turn into something bigger than you thought?

IA: 20 years old, I think. I had a pretty conventional upbringing, very academic, go to school, go to college, get a job that was what my parents hoped for me. And I severely disappointed them.

SSR: I don’t think so.

IA: When I dropped out of school and told them that I was going to be some kind of artist. It was a rough period, but I think all great things happen in those moments. So for me, it was making a firm decision to dedicate my life to creativity that I think gave me the drive to really make something out of my creativity.

SSR: And you have such, as I started to say, you have such legacy here with this show. Talk to us about the first time you came here.

IA: It was 2010 or 2011 that I’ve been coming to ICFF. I had my first piece with Bernhardt Design, and I had won an award from the American Design Honors. And I sat down with Claire of WantedDesign, and Marc Thorpe, who’s standing right there on his phone. And we went to dinner one night. I was showing them this chair, the renderings of this chair, and a couple other pieces that I’d made that weren’t quite commercial, you could say. I’d done the Bernhardt Design piece, and I’d been coming to ICFF, and I had been selected for ICFF Studio. I was showing again, more contract furniture, and I’d been making this stuff. And there wasn’t at the time, really, an outlet for that. There weren’t like the collectible design fairs, like there are now.

And even at school, making stuff like this, I was looked at with the side eye, with my teachers wondering how I would ever sell something like that to a company. And when I sat down with Mark and Claire, Claire was very clear, she’s like, ‘We have this thing we want to design, and this is exactly what would work. There’s a place for this.’ And that got me really excited. And then I found out that it cost money.

And at the time, Kickstarter was a thing. So I created a Kickstarter that literally said, ‘Ini needs to go to WantedDesign NYC.’ And I showed the process of making this chair and a couple of other pieces. And the rewards were basically autographed renderings and miniature 3D models of the furniture. And yeah, the Kickstarter succeeded in like a week. And that made me able to bring this to WantedDesign. And this is exactly the chair that I presented almost 10 years ago, plus a bit of wear and tear.

And it’s exciting to be here talking about it and exciting for the full circle of this piece that nobody really had a place for, except for WantedDesign. And I brought it to WantedDesign and showed it. And now almost 10 years later, I’m going to be doing an addition of the same piece with Friedman Benda, which is really exciting full circle.

SSR: What was the reaction when you showed this at WantedDesign 10 years ago?

IA: It was very well received. I think people were confused at first, because it’s not a typology that people are accustomed to seeing. And then people were very surprised with how comfortable it was when they sat down in it. Please don’t sit down on it. But again, at the time it was 2012. Everybody that liked it also had no idea where it would go. There weren’t galleries coming around looking for stuff like this and it’s not something commercial. So it took great pictures. It ended up in storage.

SSR: And I know Jerry from Bernhardt has said in the past that you’re a storyteller where product and narrative share equal billing. Can you talk a little bit about that and what that means in your process and what you like to create?

IA: I’ll explain. I think pretty early on when I was studying design, I got into architecture and design because I had this inherent skillset that leaned toward that. Very mathematical, methodical about the way that I do things. Intuitive about space and form. But I think getting to design school made it pretty clear that there’s a potential to have a lack of poetry in the things that I was doing. Sometimes design can be very dry and that’s what tends to separate it from art. When you go into a museum or you go to an exhibition of art, you expect to feel something. But when you’re looking at design so often you don’t have an expectation to feel anything. And I think that was when I started to really think about how I could bring some of that poetry to the things I was making. And I realized that there’s something that connects all of us, that makes us all have a shared experience that we’re having here. And if I could find a way to mine my own personal experiences and translate them into a way that we’re as attract to other people, then that could be a way to connect them directly to what I had experienced that they’ve also felt, right?

So at that point, I started to realize that the storytelling becomes integral in that process. You can’t just put a chair on the stage and say, ‘Look, this is pretty.’ At a certain point, you have to say, ‘This is why it looks like that. And this is the feeling that goes into it and hope that people can connect to that feeling.’ And that’s where storytelling became as integral as drawing the line. There are certain things that you can only explain through stories, which is why mythology is such a big part of the human experience. It’s what religion brings us. It’s also what you get from having grandparents in your life, right? So being able to express the intangible requires creating a story that somebody can take themselves out of themselves and be empathic with whoever the story is about.

SSR: Love that. And what’s your process like? How do you sit and create? As you’re coming up with these ideas, where do you start?

IA: It’s a tough question to answer because everything is different. I think one of the things that I’ve probably done well is that I was always methodical about the skillsets that I was cultivating throughout the process of becoming a professional. So, I would dedicate myself to doing a piece of furniture based on one specific approach. And I did that for the first six or seven years of school and my career to the point where now, when I do have an idea, I can dig into my toolbox and I know exactly where to start. And I usually don’t know where it’s going to end, but I know where to start. And sometimes if I’m trying to express a certain thing, it might start with making a piece of music. Sometimes it might start with going and sitting in the bathtub for an hour, right. But I have gotten to a point where when there’s something that I need to get out, I know where to start.

The chairs we are sitting on and the Knoll Collection, this was the first time since school that I designed in the traditional way that I learned to design furniture, right? This took me back to when I did the Bernhardt table. I did my research, had my ideas, and then I sat down, and I drew the side profile of what I thought the chair was going to be, and then I just went through hundreds of sheets of trace paper and just changed one thing on each drawing. I pasted them all on the wall. And then I went from that until I picked the ones that I like. I went to the full scale, pinned it on the wall. I did exactly the process that I learned at ArtCenter about out how to design a piece of furniture for the commercial space. And it was fun to go back to that. Because for years I’ve been just expressing and doing the stuff that you see in the gallery and all of that. But getting back to the hardcore traditional industrial design process, was quite fun.

SSR: That’s awesome. Speaking of these chairs, what did you want to create for Knoll? What were you trying to offer that might not already exist for them?

IA: Actually, it’s almost the other way around. I wanted to make a classic that’s if Knoll comes here and says, ‘Design something,’ you have to try to make. So it’s not really about bringing them something that they don’t have, it’s about bringing them something that fits with what they already have, right? So it’s a very personal project in a lot of ways, but also in a lot of ways, it’s Knoll. This is Knoll and Ini, right? It was a lot of research sitting with Benjamin Pardo and having long conversations. Sitting in his office and hearing stories about Florence Knoll and personal stories about her life and how the company came about. And all of that, to me, said that there’s a story that can be told with the single piece that can encapsulate all of the things that I was getting from Benjamin Pardo about what Knoll is.

And that meant that I had to reach into the European roots, the Danish, Scandinavian furniture, the American roots, midcentury, being this standout time for American furniture design worldwide. And try to roll that all in a piece of furniture that can just as easily disappear into a space as it can call attention once you pay attention to the details. With stuff like this, I can’t necessarily take credit per se, because I have so much history to learn from, to come up with this stuff. The approach is new. You haven’t really seen a stacking outdoor chair like this, but all the elements that you see, I’ve been able to mine them from a deep, rich history to make it.

SSR: I love that. Something that can stand out but doesn’t have to stand out. I love that sentiment. And they’re quite comfortable just FYI as we sit on them. So, you had a lot of history for this chair, but where else do you find inspiration and influence for other parts of your work? What do you pay attention to? Or is it just you being out there?

IA: I listen to a lot of music. I don’t know. I watch cartoons. So, yeah. I have a solitary life. So I spend a lot of time in my head. I live in Switzerland on a lake, so I spend a lot of time just looking out the window. And I think the biggest thing that I probably draw inspiration from is I try to tap into things that could be universal. I mean, it’s obviously from a spiritual standpoint, these universal themes are very important in trying to help people recognize what unifies us. But then also on purely selfish level, if you make things that a lot of people can understand and like, then you can feed yourself, right?

So usually it’s when something is coming, it comes from me just really thinking about some strong, universal theme feeling that strikes me and turning it around in my head. So I don’t usually have a lot of references until the idea is fully formed. And then once the concept is fully formed, then I tend to look to nature to see where it’s expressing itself. So you when you see the work at Friedman Benda, that stuff is really a combination of philosophy, nature, and spirituality and religious thought that goes into it. And with those things, again, I can’t even take credit for those shapes because it’s all stuff that is out there, right?

SSR: Let’s start first with the Gallup watch from Hermès. What did you want to create for them? Again, another classic timeless brand. What did you want to offer for the customer?

IA: It’s similar to Knoll. I mean, there are two things. The first thing is that their brief, they were much more direct than Knoll. Knoll was nice about it. They were like, ‘We want you to make this chair collection.’ Hermès they were like, ‘We design the future classic watch for all women,’ right?

SSR: And no pressure.

IA: Yeah. And they’re like, ‘Also, we’ve asked seven other people to do this,’ right? So the real question for me was what is the angle that people aren’t looking at? And the first thing that I realized that because they’re so traditional, they’re like, ‘We need you to make a ladies watch.’ And I was like, ‘Well, in 2020 or 2019, what does that mean?’ Right? When I see women wearing big Rolexes, I see men wearing dainty vintage watch, right?

I was like, ‘First let’s make a feminine watch. And then let’s ask ourselves what it means to be feminine in this day and age.’ I think the difference between what they’ve had in their collection before, and what I had the opportunity to make was that being feminine in this day and age doesn’t mean that the watch is being bought for you by somebody else necessarily. And it also doesn’t mean that it’s just a piece of jewelry that you’re going to wear while you’re sitting around and relaxing in your spacious mansion.

So, I think one of the things that if you try on the watch, it’s designed with an aerodynamic sense to it. And I don’t know if you wear a watch or not, but when you have these round watches, when you are walking and need to check the time, you must stop walking so you don’t fall down. And you have to turn it all the way like this. But I designed this watch so that a woman on the go or a man on the go, that’s wearing this watch, can continue walking and they can read it just like this. And all of the numbers are going in forced perspective and they’re climbing up the watch and they’re smaller to time up and larger at the bottom. In a way, you don’t have to lose your momentum or your trajectory.

In the modern age, what it means to be feminine and somebody that would walk into Hermès and buy themselves a watch, is probably a person that doesn’t just like they sit around, right? So, that was what I was thinking about for the customer. And then once I started thinking about those things, I needed to make an iconic silhouette. Because you recognize a watch by its silhouette. You could be across a room, I would know that’s a Rolex because of the silhouette of the watch. So I needed to make an iconic silhouette that touched the brand. So the stirrup became that shape because of honestly, I was in the office of the Émile Hermès, they have this museum. And when I did all of my research in Paris, I realized that this guy collected so much stuff. But the one thing that was consistent is that elected stirrups from every culture around the world.

And I don’t know if this was what was in his mind, but I was sitting there being all philosophical and I was thinking, at some point, every culture had to ride on the back of an animal. And they all created stirrups around the same time around using the same silhouette, even though I had no contact with each other. So I realized this was like a universal shape that could touch every culture, that has been in every culture’s history. And somehow it’s also emblematic of this brand. So again, wanting to put food in my mouth, I thought this is something everybody should like, so.

SSR: I love that. That’s awesome. And then on a larger scale, your recent work at the London Art Biennale is stunning, and that’s really based on storytelling and heritage. Can you tell us a little bit about what you wanted to create there?

IA: With the Biennale, it’s an interesting thing. I mean, especially when I’m in America, I try not to be political. But these biennials, they, as much as they bring everybody together, there’s an opportunity for there to be some divisiveness in the nationalistic way that they’re approached. I think it’s great to celebrate where you’re from and celebrate your heritage and all those things. But when I was asked to participate, I felt like it would’ve been disingenuous of me to start waving a flag in London for the Biennale; it just didn’t feel right. What did feel right was representing a culture that I’ve been a part of everywhere that I’ve lived in the world. I mean, I’ve lived in the U.S., I’ve lived in Switzerland, and the common thread for me and the people that I have this common bond with are the people of the African diaspora. For me, it made sense that that’s what I was going to represent on the world stage.

And at that point, it became important to think about what would be proper representation of this diaspora that doesn’t have a flag, that doesn’t have any unification in a way. And what would be beneficial to this group of people at this stage. And what became clear is that there hadn’t been a world stage for the people of diaspora to have a unified voice. Beyond screaming out to the world how we feel or anything like that, just having a place to come together and talk to each other more than anything. It’s like, how often do you see people from the U.S., and people from the UK and people from Germany that are all of the African diaspora that aren’t having a conversation with each other, they’re just having conversations internally? The goal was to create something that could travel around the world and give the people of the diaspora a chance to have a conversation.

In terms of the form language, because there isn’t like a unified Diaspora cannon to reach into, creates an opportunity to make one up. So I created a mythology. I told a story that hasn’t been told before that’s full of magic and mystery. And I pulled objects out of that. So that you had a magical shell and reverberating sound waves and a disconnected traveling people that need a way to congregate and reach out to each other. And that that gave shape to the forms.

SSR: What did you make it out of? What materiality did you use?

IA: The one in London is aluminum arches and sail cloth in between and stone as the base. There’s meaning behind the materials, but there’s also … I mean, I come from an architectural background. There are things that just make sense. So when I decided how it was going to be formed, I did the entire thing using algorithms of catenary arches, which are structurally sound. That allowed me to make something 8 meters tall and as slender and elegant as it looked while being strong. And everything just worked out.

SSR: And you said the one in London, is the idea to take it on the road to other places as well?

IA: Yeah. It’ll be coming to New York. It’ll be in Miami. We’re talking to different countries and events where it might go to, and we’re adding two more structures.

SSR: Awesome. What was the response like? And what was it like watching people interact with it?

IA: Yeah, I mean, that was good. We won best design at the Biennale. A lot of times, I look at how kids react to things. I was just happy to see kids running around it. To me, I guess it’s interesting, all that stuff is documented on the internet and all that, but to me, it was really those moments when you would see a kid just run up and start climbing on it and running underneath it, that were special.

SSR: That’s awesome. And we talked a little bit about materiality. You use a lot of different materials, marble, glass, leather. How much of your work is informed by the inherent material properties and characteristics?

IA: I think it’s impossible to escape that. Whether you’re doing it intentionally or not, materials, they’re the medium that transmits the energy that the object has. The form is warm. It’s nothing without the materiality. And how somebody feels is based on the materials. I’ve done this exact same chair with raw wood finish. It’s a completely different feeling. And the materials are what transmit that. The materials I’ve leaned into have been because they have inherent properties that people have been drawn to forever.

From the moment that somebody made glass, everybody else was like, ‘Yo, that shit’s awesome.’ When I got a chance to work with glass, I was looking at it like, this is crazy. It’s molten now, it’s about to be solid. You put colors and the light goes through it. It bends. You look through a piece of glass, and you don’t even register the fact that everything is upside down when it’s coming back at you. We accept all this magic. When you start looking at it, you’re like, ‘This is magic. I have to do something with it.’ From that standpoint, it’s almost like a cheap coat. I’ve made stuff with glass, but the glass is the glass. The material is actually the special thing. All I’ve done is put it in a way that you might pay attention to the qualities of it that maybe you weren’t paying attention to on your day-to-day.

SSR: You’ve designed so many different products is there one, I know it’s hard to pick your favorite, but is there one that you liked? Is there one medium you really love to design or one type of product that you lean towards? Or is it just the opportunity to create?

IA: Usually my favorite product is either the product I’m currently working on or the last one I did. Because everything before that, I can see all the mistakes.

SSR: And now you have works in the Met as well, right?

IA: I just had four pieces going to the permanent collection there, which is crazy.

SSR: That’s awesome. Congratulations.

IA: It’s wild. That was a crazy project. Hannah Beakler, who’s like the Academy Award winning production designer from Black Panther, just emailed me. And her and the Met were doing this period room, and we got on Zoom and she was really ecstatic about my work. I guess somebody at the Met had suggested that it might work for the show. She felt like it really represented the Afrofuturist spirit. We became friends and put those pieces in there. It’s still surreal to go into the Met and walk past big old stuff and then see my there too. It’s crazy. But there’s a chandelier, a table with solid glass legs that it’s only the second time I’ve made that one. And then, two chairs from the Sé xollections that we reupholstered with Ruth Carter’s textiles from Black Panther 2. That’s pretty cool that they sent me that

SSR: It’s an email you don’t want to miss.

IA: Yeah. I miss a lot of emails. Claire, no deal, Knoll.

SSR: But this one you didn’t, which is good. We unfortunately only have five or six more minutes. Does anyone have any questions for Ini from the audience before I keep going? Oh yes. Go ahead.

SSR: So, the question is how did you open your creativity so well across so many different mediums?

IA: The answer to that probably lies somewhere next to the reason that I can’t give an accurate description of my job. I consider myself to be creative. I think leaning into the design side was a decision, right? So I’ve been good at anything I’ve tried creatively. So when I did pottery, I was good at that. I did enameling. I did sculpture. I did a whole bunch of stuff. But then when I dropped out of school, I was just a vagrant in life and I decided that I was going to make something of myself. The question was, all right, if I’ve lost a time and wasted some time, where have I already put in hours? And it was obvious that I had an advantage in that I started doing 3D modeling when I was 11 as a hobby.

I had followed the trajectory of the beginnings of all the Adobe software. And every Christmas, I would ask for new software. In my mind, I was just like, ‘Oh, I like playing on the computer.’ When I dropped out of business school, I was like, ‘Oh, I got to do something.’ And I’m sitting there playing on Photoshop. I was like, ‘What if I make this my job?’ It became a decision to move that way, but I didn’t learn the tools toward doing this job. I was just always expressing myself.

Honestly, most of my Photoshop was just like, I would take my graffiti, scan it, and do cool stuff with it. And all the skills that I learned doing that, I saw could be applied to architecture and furniture. And so I started doing that while I was making music, while I was doing all this other stuff. So honestly, to be creative, I really just need a challenge. And that’s why generally, my next project is usually something that I haven’t done before. When Hermès comes and says, ‘Do you want to do a watch?’ I’m like, ‘Hell, yeah.’ They’re like, ‘Have you designed a watch before?’ I’m like, ‘Hell no.’

Then I just do it. I don’t put any boundaries on it. That’s key. If you’re creative in any realm, you can apply it to anything. It’s just a matter of understanding the parameters and what the inputs are. Then coming up with a novel output. That’s all creativity is. It’s like, what do you do with these ingredients?

SSR: What would you tell yourself 10 years ago here? What would be your advice for somebody else starting out and figuring out their way?

IA: Mark Thorpe told me once, he was like, ‘Show up and do dope shit.’ I couldn’t give myself better advice than that. A lot of times when that question is asked, it’s like, ‘Oh, go tell myself, don’t worry. It’s going to be all right.’ But I don’t know, I was pretty confident back then, even though it wasn’t working yet. I don’t really know what I would tell myself.

SSR: Yeah. That’s fine.

IA: Drink less.

SSR: Anyone else? Yes. Ma’am. How many projects do you typically work on at one point at one?

IA: It’s now a lot more. I used to really try to do one project at a time. I’m pretty laser focused. And the Knoll collection when I was doing that, I focused only on Knoll for the beginning couple of months. I put everything in my life to the side, and I just focused on this chair. And that’s how, for me at least, I can go from having an idea to manifesting it is to just like start and then finish. Part of my design process now is even though I have multiple projects, I don’t really work on multiple creative things in one day. I usually determine before I go to sleep, what I’m going to be working on the next day. And then I focus only on that. To the detriment of my email answering. Even if I’m working on multiple projects, to be honest, when I’m designing things these days, I usually try to design them in one day. So, I’ll do all my research and be prepared. And then when I decide today, ‘I’m doing this thing,’ I do that thing and focus on it. I couldn’t even tell you how many projects are in the pipeline right now. Because, I need my people to help remind me what I need to do next and when the deadline is.

SSR: Is there something that’s on your bucket list to design that you haven’t designed yet?

IA: A Temple.

SSR: Awesome. What’s next for you? What else are you working on? What are you looking forward to next year?

IA: Whatever the coolest stuff is, I’m not allowed to talk about. I just did a really cool short film with Hasan Raheem, who’s an amazing artist, typographer, and now director. I’m working with Logitech, and we’ve got some pretty cool things that we’re working on. And one of them is finding creative ways to express some of the most amazing things that they create. And Ultimate Ears is one of the companies that is under their umbrella. To showcase the beauty of what these earbuds can do, during the pandemic, we decided to do a short film and photo campaign and that should be coming in the next month or so.

SSR: That’s so fun. Well, Ini, I can’t thank you enough for being here today and sharing your creative process and little bit about you. And thank you all for being here. Hope you had wonderful ICFF WantedDesign, and enjoy the rest of the day.