TOMI LAJA
laja.tomi@gmail.com





(b. Ibadan) is a Nigerian-American writer, designer, and artist. Her independent practices prioritize poetics, process, and critical thought to explore themes on form, agency, and sensuality. Her current research holds special interest in abstraction and perception. She develops essays, sculptures, and drawings, and works on personal and commissioned assignments worldwide.

Her collaborative roles include design, editorial, communications, and research to support the realization of complex projects from publications and initiatives to installations. She has worked with SOM (Chicago and NYC); The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts (Chicago); Studio Sung Tieu at the German Pavilion, Venice Art Biennale; The Funambulist: Politics of Space & Bodies (Paris); Scapegoat: Architecture, Landscape, and Political Economy (Berlin), and was the Guest Editor of the third issue of DISC: Media, Technology, and Environments, amongst others. She has taught at the University of Arts Berlin and has presented her work at the Museum of Art and Cultural History Dortmund; Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson; and the Institute of Cultural Inquiry (ICI) Berlin. Her writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Art Papers, MIT Press (with Storefront for Art & Architecture), PIN—UP, HKW (Haus der Kulturen der Welt), and the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial, amongst others. Awards include a Fulbright Germany grant for independent research (2023-24) and a fellowship with Design Akademie Saaleck, dieDAS (2024). She has been invited to art and writing residencies at Luminary Arts (2022) and High Desert Test Sites by Andrea Zittel (2026). A guest in Fine Art at Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, she holds degrees in architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design and Iowa State University of Science & Technology.