Technologies of Protest

Ayodamola Tanimowo Okunseinde (ayo) is a Nigerian-American artist, designer, anthropologist, and time traveler living and working in New York. He is a 2021-22 GIDEST Faculty Fellow and an Assistant Professor of Interaction and Media Design at Parsons, The New School for Design. Ayo is also a Ph.D. student in Anthropology at New School for Social Research where he explores the perceived and lived temporal experiences of Black communities.

He studied Visual Arts and Philosophy at Rutgers University where he earned his B.A. His works range from painting and speculative design to physically interactive works, wearable technology, and explorations of “Reclamation”. His residency participation includes ITP’s S.I.R., IDEO’s Fortnight, The Laundromat Project, Eyebeam, New INC, and Recess Assembly. He has exhibited and presented at the 11th Shanghai Biennale, Tribeca Storyscapes, EYEO Festival, Brooklyn Museum, M.I.T. Beyond the Cradle, and Afrotectopia amongst others. 

He is the Co-founder and Director of Iyapo Repository, a resource library that exists in a nondescript future that was founded to collect and preserve artifacts to ensure the history and legacy of people of African descent. His works exist between physical and digital spaces; across the past, present and future. Okunseinde’s works ask us, via a technological lens, to reimagine notions of race, identity, politics, and culture as we travel through time and space.