YÉtundÉ OlÁgbajÚ

yétúndé olágbajú (b. 1990) is a research-based artist, producer, and residency director living on Ohlone and Tongva lands (Bay Area & Los Angeles, CA). Their work roots in a single question:

What must we reckon with as we build a future, together?

With no set answers or expectations, olagbaju unravels intricate connections as a means of highlighting our interdependence. They are interested in how our familial, platonic, romantic, and ecological bonds are affected by what we confront in the reckoning. Inspired by the divine and the everyday within Blackness, they use the moving-image, the sculptural, and the collaborative in order to explore possible futures.

Through their social practice they have co-founded and are a member of numerous artist and worker-led collectives, each with liberatory missions and values. An advocate for nonhierarchical working structures, they embrace shared leadership models that challenge white supremacy, by actively rejecting disposability and power hoarding — two of its guiding tenets. They hold an MFA from Mills College and are the recipient of multiple awards including a YBCA 100 award and a Headlands Center for the Arts fellowship. They were a recent award finalist with ART X Prize, organized by ART X Lagos and was a resident at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts [Deer Isle, ME] and Center for Afrofuturist Studies [Iowa City, IA]. They begin a commission and year-long residency at 500 Capp Street in Winter 2023.