Temitayo Ogunbiyi: You will have revelations along felled branches and longer roots/routes

Lagos-based Temitayo Ogunbiyi’s work forges dialogues between global current events, plants, people, and communities. Visitors to her debut Wexner Center exhibition can explore the layered histories and everyday uses of plants from Nigeria to the Midwest. Ogunbiyi’s finely detailed drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installations honor health, resilience, and care. The Wex presentation includes sculptures formed from copper-alloy casts of grinding stones (the ancient version of the blender or food processor) and palm fibers. These speak to histories of nourishment and labor. They also link ancient counting systems like the abacus and quipu to contemporary ideas of community. Visitors can interact with some pieces, including antique wooden desks and side tables, to reveal and conceal botanical drawings. Ogunbiyi draws these on herbarium paper, used for centuries to mount botanical specimens. Alongside the furniture, viewers may recognize native Midwest plants depicted in paintings arranged on the walls. The exhibition invites us into a space that suggests possibilities—from alternate realities to sustainable societies. Encouraging us to play and discover, Ogunbiyi opens a dialogue that connects social and technological questions, anthropological histories, and botanical and culinary cultures.