For Giles Tettey Nartey, architecture and design are deeply personal pursuits. The British-Ghanaian artist and architect has built a wide portfolio spanning filmmaking, installation, performance, architecture and object design, each thread tied by a connection to memory and materiality. Born in South London and raised in Accra, his formative years were defined by a fluid sense of home – an "in-between state," as he describes it – that bridges two worlds. “Growing up in Accra as a child in Ghana hugely impacted how I view design and space making,” he explains. “I distinctly remember being inspired by the informal architectures of the local community and how a set of informal behaviours and practices animated the structures and legitimised the informality, whether that was the food kiosks, the barbers or the tailor. You could say my interest in architecture and materiality started at this point as well as the informal ways of being and living which can transform built form.”
This duality – shaped by a childhood spent observing the resourcefulness of Ghanaian artisans and the industrial landscapes of London – has become the bedrock of his artistic language and output. His perspective is also influenced by his parents, a film director father and a psychotherapist mother, whose vocations nurtured his multidisciplinary approach to design as being a method for storytelling and preservation. “My concept of home has always been rooted in the rituals, objects and people rather than physical walls and floors,” he explains. “This perspective is central to my practice, which revolves around capturing and preserving the objects and practices from my memories.”
In addition to his architectural work, Tettey Nartey is also an associate professor at the Bartlett UCL and is developing a research-led design and art practice. A clear multi-hyphenate, Tettey Nartey’s work channels various mediums and formats, but is united by a common goal – to celebrate African craft traditions. This can be seen in projects such as Communion, which highlights the communal act of making fufu, a dish made from cassava; Interplay, a engraved bench imbued with layered narratives; SERWAA, a re-imagination of a West African Lobi chair; and Artefacts of Ritual, an ongoing research project exploring West African domestic rituals. Below, we delve into the ways in which African craft traditions inform his work, the role of ritual and community in creativity, and the significance of storytelling in object making.
How do you incorporate African craft traditions into your practice?
African craft cultures are a catalyst for re-imagining the space we live in, moving between art and architecture. My practice is research-led so incorporating African craft traditions into my practice involves a deep but sensitive engagement with the cultural, historical and material aspects of these traditions. My approach begins with extensive research into African craft traditions, particularly those from West Africa, to understand the techniques, materials and cultural significance of various crafts.
This research forms the foundation of my projects and shapes my entire practice. It provides the essential context and understanding necessary to authentically reinterpret and innovate within these traditions. My heritage plays a pivotal role in this process, serving as both an anchor and a point of departure. It grounds my work in a rich cultural lineage, while also inspiring imaginative reconfigurations of rituals and design objects that resonate with contemporary contexts.
Your work explores film, performance, installation, space and objects. How do you integrate these mediums into your design narrative?
My practice is inherently an art led practice which uses design as a language, a way of communicating, telling stories and a conduit through which emotion is transferred and transmitted. The integration of multiple mediums into my work is intuitive; I see them as all deeply interconnected and at times inseparable. As an architect I am fundamentally concerned with space – how it is used and misused or how it is curated and filled by the tangible and intangible. My work touches on the relationship between object and performance. It is critically influenced by the historical miscategorisation of African objects as inanimate artefacts, but most were part of rituals and practices from the spiritual to the domestic. The work tries to reframe the use of objects, artefacts, or space itself as a form of performance, where the act of engagement is as significant as the object's form. This relationship allows the use of moving image or still image as a vital component in capturing the threshold between use and performance.
My work also emphasises the hybridity of objects and materials, showing how interaction activates and changes their use. For instance, a calabash can be used to carry water or made into a musical instrument. I explore the tension created when art pieces are activated or animated by people, allowing them to live as both art and design depending on their context. This approach is not static but requires activation, utilising different tools to tell stories, moving fluidly between art and architecture.
How important is the notion of ritual in your work?
The concept of ritual holds profound significance in my work. I define it as imbuing the routine of practice with meaning, acting as the nexus through which the body and objects connect to intangible aspects such as memory and cultural symbolism. My ongoing research project, titled Artefacts of Ritual, explores West African domestic rituals as catalysts for re-imagining space in architecture and design through a diasporic lens.
Rituals serve as the cornerstone of my practice, providing a conduit to explore themes of memory, culture and identity. They act as a bridge between the past and present, enabling me to stay connected to my heritage while fostering contemporary reinterpretation. Each ritual enactment not only perpetuates tradition but also offers an opportunity for reinterpretation, empowering individuals to affirm, challenge and reshape cultural norms and power dynamics through their embodied actions.
I’d love to hear more about your project Communion, why focus on the practice of making ‘fufu’ and how does this translate creatively? What stories are you hoping to share?
The practice of making and eating fufu in Ghana is a deeply ingrained cultural practice that goes beyond mere food preparation. It can be seen as a performative art form, where two performers engage in a rhythmic and synchronised process, creating a choreography of movement and sound. The interaction between the two performers, one turning the pounded mixture and the other pounding, is akin to a dance. They strive to reach a point of synchronicity, where their actions complement each other seamlessly. Each movement and strike of the wooden pestle against the wooden mortar contributes to the creation of a distinct rhythm and tempo. The design focuses on the rituals that bring to life the objects we gather in our homes, presenting them not just as lifeless items filling our spaces but as artefacts rich with emotional and spiritual meaning, animated through our daily routines.
I wanted Communion to capture this essence of home life, spotlighting a practice that's both deeply rooted in and widespread across West Africa, yet marked by subtle differences in ingredients, utensils and methods. The activity typically unfolds outdoors, which is perceived as an extension of the home's living space. The tradition of preparing fufu is steeped in communal values. It's an experience often shared among family, friends or neighbours, serving as a gathering point for engaging discussions, sharing stories and addressing community issues.
I also think for me there is a question of functionality and whose functionality we admire and give space to. The piece is a celebration of a practice so local to West Africa and an integral part of the everyday practices that people perform to simply eat. My role has been to present this act in a newly imagined way which gives emphasis to the ‘communal’ through the act of sharing and collective practice. By creating a moment which holds space and allows multiple people to participate in the process of making fufu. The everyday local practice is transformed into performance and exposes the beauty I have always seen in the quotidian act.
The SERWAA stool is a contemporary take on a Lobi chair from West Africa. Can you tell me more about this piece and why you focused on this particular chair? How exactly have you reimagined it?
SERWAA is a re-imagination of a West African Lobi chair, traditionally crafted by the Lobi people who live in present-day Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. Lobi furniture is typically carved from a single tree, giving it a distinctive look. These characteristics often appear strange in a Western context because they embody a different way of living, a unique relationship with the ground and an alternative design sensibility. The Lobi chair and SERWAA function as lounge chairs. The slim seat allows for the spread of legs on either side, serving as two points of contact, with the seat being the third. The angled back orients the head towards the sky.
The piece was conceptualised during a trip to Ghana after seeing a traditional Lobi chair while walking through a market. The stall had various more commonly seen Ghanaian stools for sale but not the Lobi chair – it was in use, seemingly beyond the realms of commodification or not even considered a product to be sold. This intrigued me. The stool was used in an everyday way.
The choice to use aluminium for the first version of SERWAA was to accentuate the idea of making contemporary a traditionally crafted object and this is where the shift of reimagination is. I asked myself a series of questions: what would West African design look like as an industrial product?
Can you discuss the chair design process?
It was created by welding sections of aluminium, followed by carving and sculpting the piece. My design process, like all my work, begins with a sketch on a post-it note or a loose piece of paper, often sketched loosely upwards of 50 times. This iterative process helps me identify the essence of the piece – its main characteristics and general balance. From these sketches, I create a series of small maquettes before translating the design into a 3D object. The choice to use aluminium for the first version was to explore the notion of the 'contemporary’. This decision stemmed from a desire to create a critical juxtaposition. In the design community, we often admire and revere 20th-century furniture design as the pinnacle of furniture and industrial design. When I think about this period, chrome, metal and clean lines are some of the aesthetic markers that come to mind. SERWAA was an opportunity to engage in this dialogue by shifting the material choice and positioning a traditional West African object and design sensibility as equally important. The aim was to create a beautifully designed object but also to demonstrate that such traditional objects should be seen and valued in the same way as their 20th-century counterparts.
Tell me about your project Interplay, which rethinks furniture as shared skin with engraved narratives. What inspired this concept, and what messages are you hoping to convey?
Interplay, like Communion and SERWAA are part of an ongoing body of work titled Artefacts of Ritual. Interplay looked to recreate a traditional West African bench-bed as a shared skin, with engraved and overlapped narratives occupying its marked surface. Interplay proposes a performative interaction, it embedded the game known in Ghana as ‘Oware’ within its form and suggested a spatial negotiation between the game, a communal bench and a daybed. Oware is an indigenous African board game belonging to the expansive Mancala family. Its origins trace back to West Africa and it is played in different variations across the continent, each bearing its unique name and slight variation in gameplay. Central to the discourse on Oware is its intersection with rituals and the notion of the quotidian, positioning the game not merely as a form of entertainment but as a ritualistic practice.
The main indentations in the piece refer to imprinting and embedding the traces of usage. The intention was to make the piece feel as if it had been sculpted by a multitude of interactions, each leaving behind traces of their presence, both past and future. The bench's design draws inspiration from the rich tradition of African skin marking, akin to the practice of scarification. It uses these moments of engraved and carved marks as a way of firstly, referencing the piece as an extension of the African skin but also a piece imbued with cultural significance and meaning. The marks etched into the surface are an invitation to touch, prompting a tactile exchange beyond just visuals.
You recently held your first solo exhibition, Kuruwa, in Seoul, can you share some details about this?
For my solo exhibition titled Kuruwa in Seoul, I continued developing a formal language while expanding my exploration of material and craft cultures by creating a dialogue between West African and Korean cultural heritages. The title, Kuruwa, meaning "small cup" in Twi, reflects my aim to create a bridge between these distinct traditions. The work invited viewers into a space where the aesthetics, philosophies and practices of West Africa and Korea intersect, collide and ultimately coexist. This convergence offered an interplay of forms, textures and narratives, prompting reflection on how these traditions can inform and transform one another.
At the heart of the exhibition was the concept of the ‘vessel’, which I investigated as a metaphorical holder of everyday life and a symbol of cultural identity. The vessel, in this context, became a medium through which histories are carried forward, rituals are preserved, and cultural dialogues are activated. Its material form and the practices involved in its creation embody both the tangible and intangible aspects of heritage.
Kuruwa sought to address the pressing need to preserve and pass on traditional craft techniques, celebrating their significance as living legacies while situating them within contemporary contexts.
Your work is helping to shift the global design canon by rooting contemporary design in traditional West African culture. What challenges and opportunities do you see in this endeavour?
The challenges and opportunities are so intertwined. One major challenge is overcoming cultural misunderstanding or misappropriation, as it requires continuous engagement with and learning from the communities and artisans who originate these practices, which is also an opportunity. Generally, there is a delicate balance between preserving traditional methods and innovating to make them ‘relevant’ in contemporary design, which can be seen as both a challenge and an opportunity but in my work the need to be relevant is not a concern. My work is about creating and facilitating a dialogue with myself, with you, with the continent, with the African diaspora with the hope to reframe and reposition the importance of craft traditions and centre different design sensibilities – it is already relevant.
What are some of the future projects or ideas you’re excited to pursue?
I am excited about the future directions my work will take. One of my primary interests is to continue exploring ‘artefacts of rituals’ within the context of West African domestic life. This involves a deeper investigation into the cultural practices and daily routines that shape these communities. Additionally, I aim to unpack other research topics that intersect with my current focus, broadening the scope of my work and allowing for a more comprehensive exploration of cultural narratives.
Creating impactful work is a central goal for me, and I am really committed to pushing the boundaries between art, design and research. My future projects will involve multi-faceted research that blends tradition with contemporary design. By doing this, I hope to create work that resonates both aesthetically and culturally, highlighting the richness of West African traditions and their relevance in today's world.