🔗 Share this article

Whenhen a Nigerian art enthusiast, exhibition organizer and dealer received a pair of Yorùbá carved twin figures – ère ìbejì – in recent years as a token for a successful art deal, it marked the beginning of a new obsession. Although he had previously encountered a few of ìbejì sculptures in his uncle’s assemblage of traditional African artifacts, the present struck a chord with him, a twin himself.

“I've constantly been conscious of ìbejì but I must admit my passionate investigation was definitely a 2022 moment.”

“I’ve been gathering them ever since,” states the collector, who studied as a lawyer in the UK. “I buy back from international sales and also every time I find someone in Nigeria who owns them and wants to part with them or dispose of them, I take them.”

The Traditional Importance of Ère Ìbejì

The ère ìbejì are a material embodiment of a distinctive sacred, cultural and artistic custom among Yorùbá people, who have among the globe's top twinning rates of twins and are more than four times more prone to have them than Western populations.

The average twin rate of the Yorùbá community of a Nigerian town in Nigeria’s southwestern region, is 45 twins per 1,000 births, compared with a global mean of about a much lower figure.

“In Yorùbá culture, twin children occupy a position of deep sacred and social importance,” explains a scholar who has studied ère ìbejì.

“This community are reputed to have an elevated twinning rates in the globe, and this phenomenon is interpreted not merely as a natural event but as a indication of divine blessing.

“Twin siblings are regarded as bearers of good fortune, wealth and protection for their families and communities,” he says.

The Custom of Venerating Twins

“When a twin dies, carved wooden figures [ère ìbejì] are crafted to accommodate the spirit of the departed child, guaranteeing continued reverence and safeguarding the wellbeing of the surviving sibling and the wider kin.”

The statuettes, which are additionally sculpted for alive twin pairs, were treated like actual infants: washed, anointed, nursed, clothed (in the identical dresses as the twins, if alive), decorated with beads, chanted and worshipped, and carried on women’s backs.

“I'm attracted to creators who engage with the concept of twinship signifies: dual nature, loss, companionship, permanence.”

They were sculpted with stylised characteristics – with protruding eyes, their faces often marked, and given mature features such as reproductive organs and bosoms. Most importantly, their heads are big and immensely coiffed to symbolise each twin’s spirit, creation and destiny, or orí.

The Revival Initiative: This Ibeji Project

This custom, nevertheless, has been largely forgotten. The ìbejì figures are dispersed in overseas museums all over the world, with the most recent dating from the mid-1950s.

So, in February 2023, the collector initiated the Ibeji Initiative to revitalise the lived history of the custom.

“This initiative is an informative and advocacy program that presents heritage artifacts to modern audiences,” he says. “Twinhood is global, but the Yoruba reaction – carving ère ìbejì as vessels for souls – is distinctive and must be kept alive as a living dialogue rather than frozen in museums abroad.”

In October 2024, he organized an ìbejì-centred show in partnership with a London gallery.

The initiative involves collecting original ère ìbejì, displaying them and pairing them with curated modern art that extends the heritage by exploring the themes of duality. “I am drawn to artists who seriously interact with the meaning of twinhood represents: duality, loss, fellowship, continuity,” he states.

He thinks curating contemporary artistic pieces – such as sculptures, installations, canvases or photos – that possess creative and conceptual similarities with ère ìbejì repositions the ancient tradition in the present. “[The Ìbejì Project] is a platform where modern creators produce their own interpretations, extending the dialogue into the now,” he says.

“I'm very satisfied when individuals who once ignored traditional art begin to acquire it due to the initiative,” notes the founder.

Upcoming Goals and Global Influence

Next, he aspires to release a publication “to make the ìbejì heritage available to academics and the wider public”.

He states: “Though rooted in Yoruba culture, the Ìbejì Project is for the globe. Similarly to how we examine different cultures, others should study our heritage with the same dedication.

“The aspiration is that they will not be seen as museum curiosities, but as components of a living, breathing cultural heritage.”