tomi seyi laja
laja.tomi@gmail.com
Berlin, Germany

(b. 1996, Ibadan) is a Nigerian–American architect, artist, and essayist currently based in Berlin, by way of Chicago. Working with sculpture, installation, drawing, and writing, her research-based practice prioritizes poetics to explore spatial themes on form, environment, agency, and sensuality. She works on personal and commissioned projects worldwide.

She has collaborated and worked with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (Chicago and NYC), Park Books (Zurich), OMA/AMO (Rotterdam), the Graham Foundation (Chicago), The Funambulist magazine (Paris), amongst others, with design, research, editorial, and communications. Her writing has been published by MIT Press, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Art Papers, and DISC Journal.

Constructing micro–climates of the cool, her larger body of art–architecture–essayistic works are forming quiet architectonics for collective rest, referencing thought by Darell Fields, Sylvia Wynter, and Edouard Glissant with central concepts on abstraction, interiority, and opacity.