Creativity, Community & Purpose

Yara Okafor doesn't like the word 'studio'. "It sounds like a place you go to make things for yourself," she says. "I wanted a place you go to make things for each other."

That distinction runs through everything she's built over the last decade — from a furniture collective in Lagos to a design fellowship that has since trained over 200 young makers across West Africa.

We spoke about ego, apprenticeship, and why she still refuses to put her name on anything she designs alone. "If it only has one author," she says, "I probably didn't do my job."