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When an African art enthusiast, exhibition organizer and dealer received a pair of Yorùbá carved twin figures – ère ìbejì – in 2022 as a token for a successful business transaction, it marked the beginning of a new passion. Although he had previously encountered a few of ìbejì sculptures in his uncle’s assemblage of African traditional art, the gift resonated deeply with him, a twin himself.

“I've constantly been aware of ìbejì but I will say my passionate investigation was certainly a 2022 moment.”

“I have been gathering them ever since,” says the collector, who studied as a lawyer in the UK. “I acquire from foreign auctions and also every time I locate someone in Nigeria who owns them and desires to give them away or get rid of them, I take them.”

The Traditional Significance of Ère Ìbejì

The ère ìbejì are a physical embodiment of a unique spiritual, traditional and creative custom among Yorùbá people, who have among the globe's top birth rates of twins and are significantly more prone to bear twins than Europeans.

The average twin rate of the Yorùbá town of Igbo-Ora in Nigeria’s Oyo state, is an exceptionally high twin ratio, compared with a global mean of about a much lower figure.

“In Yorùbá culture, twin children hold a position of deep spiritual and social significance,” explains a scholar who has studied ère ìbejì.

“This community are reputed to have one of the highest twinning rates in the globe, and this occurrence is viewed not merely as a natural event but as a sign of heavenly blessing.

“Twin siblings are regarded as carriers of prosperity, prosperity and protection for their households and communities,” the expert adds.

The Tradition of Venerating Twin Spirits

“When a twin dies, carved wooden figures [ère ìbejì] are created to house the spirit of the deceased child, guaranteeing continued veneration and protecting the wellbeing of the living sibling and the wider family.”

The statuettes, which are also sculpted for alive twins, were taken care of like real babies: bathed, oiled, breastfed, clothed (in the identical dresses as the twins, if alive), decorated with ornaments, sung and prayed to, and transported on female backs.

“I am attracted to artists who interact with the concept of twinship signifies: dual nature, absence, partnership, continuity.”

They were sculpted with stylised features – with protruding eyeballs, their cheeks often scarified, and given adult traits such as genitalia and bosoms. Crucially, their heads are large and immensely styled to symbolise each sibling's essence, origin and destiny, or orí.

A Resurgence Effort: The Ibeji Initiative

This tradition, nevertheless, has been largely lost. The ìbejì sculptures are scattered in foreign institutions around the globe, with the most recent dating from the 1950s era.

So, in early 2023, the collector launched the Ibeji Initiative to revitalise the living history of the custom.

“The Ìbejì Project is an informative and awareness platform that introduces traditional art to modern viewers,” he says. “Twinhood is universal, but the Yoruba reaction – sculpting ère ìbejì as containers for souls – is unique and must be preserved as a ongoing conversation rather than frozen in museums abroad.”

In late 2024, he curated an ìbejì-focused exhibition in collaboration with a UK-based gallery.

The initiative involves collecting authentic ère ìbejì, exhibiting them and pairing them with curated contemporary art that continues the heritage by exploring the themes of duality. “I am drawn to creators who deeply interact with what twinship embodies: duality, loss, companionship, continuity,” he says.

He thinks selecting modern art works – such as three-dimensional works, installations, paintings or photography – that share creative and thematic parallels with ère ìbejì resituates the ancient tradition in the present. “[This project] is a platform where contemporary creators create their personal responses, carrying the dialogue into the now,” he says.

“I'm most pleased when individuals who previously dismissed heritage works start to acquire it because of the Ìbejì Project,” says the collector.

Future Ambitions and Global Impact

In the future, he aspires to release a publication “to make the ìbejì tradition accessible to academics and the broader public”.

He says: “Though based in Yoruba tradition, the initiative is for the world. Similarly to how we study other societies, others should study our heritage with the same dedication.

“The aspiration is that they will no longer be seen as institutional curiosities, but as part of a vibrant, dynamic cultural heritage.”