10 Questions With… Jomo Tariku

Virginia-based designer and furniture maker Jomo Tariku grew up in Ethiopia among objects his father, an attaché, brought home from his trips to Kenya, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia to name a few. Tariku, who was born in Kenya, traveled across Africa as a teenager thanks to his mother’s job at Ethiopian Airlines. “Our house was full of objects and furniture, which was a pretty eclectic collection,” Tariku tells Interior Design. “My parents didn’t have a specific style, but within the diplomatic community, there is always a tendency to exchange gifts.” Between age 14 and 16, he worked in the capital city, Addis Ababa, at a car shop, which he remembers as “being the same size as my current studio.” There, he varnished, painted, and assembled “anything outside the dangerous machinery work,” while also constantly sketching and drawing his surroundings. From those days to his decades-long career in industrial design, Tariku’s life and work continues to reflect his ongoing exploration of objects and culture.

Jomo Tariku Talks Afrofuturism and Finding Inspiration in Everyday Objects

Interior Design: How did moving to the U.S. influence your decision to pursue design?

Jomo Tariku: My parents were always supportive of my decisions, but my first plan for education was to pursue computer science like my older brother. I discovered the world of design a year after attending college, which was a small school in Kansas. I pretty much didn’t do well with the direction of computer science. My grades started failing, but I was doing well with my elective painting and drawing classes. The professor there said I could pursue a minor degree in art. Then, I went to the University of Kansas during my summer break to talk to instructors—there was one person available and he ended up being my design mentor. Furniture design came later, when I did my thesis for the industrial design program at University of Kansas.

ID: Your approach to design has a lot to do with everyday objects, often altering the scale of combs, necklaces, and even animal bones to play with their familiarity. How do you see this connection reflected in your current practice?

JT: One of the arguments I was making in my thesis was that our inspirations should not only come from pre-existing seatings or chairs that we see. When we look at all the stools around us, we end up tending to design a stool that looks pretty much like what we’ve seen. I’ve always thought we cannot innovate much from that perspective. To walk away from that, I’ve needed various other things to inspire me, as long as they’re within the real estate of Africa: that could be hairstyles, the afro pick, a landscape, the headrest, or other seatings, which I’m not saying I don’t use as reference points at all. If you let all these different things inspire you, there’s a good chance you can come up with unique designs that differentiate you.

ID: Do you think about the relationship you’re building with the people who will use your furniture? For example, the Qwanta chair is interchangeable, so you offer the typical experience of sitting and touching a chair, but also an option to contribute to the chair’s formation.

JT: Qwanta was inspired by the traditional African birch chair which you can pick apart. If you pull out the seat part, the holster comes out and the chair collapses. I experimented to reverse that order where the seat becomes static in the backrest. And the backrest has become a totem, which plays major religious roles in different societies within Africa to celebrate our ancestors. The question was how to get others involved in creating their own totems incorporated to the chair. Eventually, the chair has become a living collaborative piece. One version includes a series of round holes around the back to invite users to tie their own fabrics through them.

ID: Could you talk about your ideas of purpose and function in design?

JT: When I was growing up in Ethiopia, we would make coffee with our pot to fulfill its purpose, and when we were done, we used to wash it and put it up on a mantel as a decorative element. All of my pieces are artistic statements as they are but also serve a purpose—they are sculptural, conceptual, functional pieces. Within our communities, most objects came out of a need for a utility purpose. But most people here in the U.S. and in the west, even other Ethiopians, buy those things and put them on a shelf or a rack as decorative elements. In the case of the Qwanta chair, I’ll keep experimenting and let it be a collaborative piece with which I hope to create a relationship with other artists. I actually reached out to few when I was at Design Miami/ to offer them a blank canvas, which is a backrest where they can create their own marks.

ID: How about the sculptural aspect? Nyala is a sculptural form, almost in a Henry Moore-esque way, with sleek curves.

JT: Us designers, we generally like to make a statement piece, but where we run into difficulty is to make a statement that is equally functional. Ergonomics will get in the way of you going too crazy with the design because the idea needs to work, say, as a chair. When we prototype, one of the first things I do is to walk around it in circles and try to see if there’s any angle that I can fix. The form needs to flow; it needs to be elegant; and the lines need to be very clean. Nyela I think has both that clean form with organic shapes flowing through it but it is also comfortable.

When you appreciate art and craft, you want to be able to discover things that are not visually obvious. You want to be after elements of touch to discover the details. In the end, it is a mix. The finished work needs to satisfy my eyes, because on paper as a sketch, a lot of things look nice and easy to tweak. But everything changes when you starting making something. As a designer, I don’t know if there’s anything better than having that visual satisfaction and sharing that object with people.

ID: Are you interested in experimenting with black ash wood?

JT: My material palette is limited. I do use ash, American ash, and birch plywood for the CNC cuts. I’m pretty much a one-person operation; cost is a major concern. Definitely I don’t want to use exotic wood from Africa. The continent has been losing its trees, because people don’t want to replant—they abuse it and walk away. Wild forestry in the U.S. is better managed, so I feel better about using these materials. Do I want to use materials outside of wood, such as plastics, metals, carbon fiber, and so on? Yes, I do in the right intention. I plan to expand as I experiment with different materials. A museum has requested one of my chairs in bronze, for example. I plan to expand within financial and environmental reasons.

ID: Could you also talk about your work in the Black Artists and Designers Guild?

JT: I was invited to be one of the members by the founder Malene Barnett when the guild was initially founded in 2018. One of our goals is to promote and make sure Black designers’ work remains visible. We want to make sure our work is noticed by publications and we are represented at trade shows. We work to provide the designers opportunities to exhibit at museums and galleries, and get collected by institutions. These efforts include Black designers from the diaspora, as well as those from Africa. As a beneficiary of the guild, I notice for example that my work has started being noticed in the last year and a half after working in the field for almost 30 years.

ID: Some of your designs have been used in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Did the collaboration prompt you to think more about Afrofuturism in your work?

JT: They approached me with a simple email saying they may want to acquire or rent some of my pieces for a film. They didn’t specify that it would be for “Black Panther.” In our industry, it is not uncommon to get inquiries in this way, especially for photo shoots or commercials. I at first thought it’d be something in that vein but later the offer turned out to be for Marvel. They were interested in my Mukecha, Dogon, Nyala, and Boraatii stools to use in the background.

By default, I fall within the Afrofuturism style or concept. I come from the age of technological tools that are available via 3d laser cutting, printing, and modeling. So my style is within that matter. On the other hand, I’ve seen people from Asia react to the pieces, because they think there are similarities with objects within Asia. Others see them as close to mid-century furniture. There are all kinds of overlaps for admirers of any craft.

I try to push the agenda or views on African design while everybody can have their own vision for it. We are missing from the design canon which is way too much western-centric. When we get included, our work tends to be from the western gaze. The general belief is that Africans can only make certain stools, textiles, or use animal prints. I’m pushing against these misconceptions although those things are just parts of a kaleidoscope of things we create.

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