Estelle Yomeda – Kente Project

At Kente Project Art Lab, forms intertwine transgenerational memories and ancestral techniques, to transform pieces of furniture into contemporary relics.

Estelle Yomeda is a French-Togolese artist and designer who began her career in Yves Saint-Laurent's Shoe Studio after studying visual arts at the University of Strasbourg and artisanal crafts at the Costume Workshops of the Opéra du Rhin.

She created Kente Project Art Lab, a nomadic design studio that she envisions as a “laboratory of know-how”. Its name comes from her discovery of Kente, a traditional weave that has survived through the centuries to become the identifying and symbolic fabric of Togo and Ghana.

Setting out to meet artisans in Lomé, Estelle Yomeda seeks answers, intertwining personal and universal history to give life to solid wood pieces. The combination of Melina, Neem, or Cassia wood species – chosen for their value in a sustainable environmental approach – gives the design a natural polychromy, which highlights the forms of her series of Ekkö Totem stools.

Her Sokodé sofa ends, also presented at the Private Choice 2023 edition, resemble genuine sculptures. Their sensual form is amplified by their tactile dimension: a velvety exterior face is combined with an interior wall in relief, striated with a wood knife.