Olalekan Jeyifous Uses Speculative Design to Reimagine Urban Futures

Brooklyn-based artist and designer Olalekan Jeyifous employs speculative design to envision alternative urban futures. Trained as an architect, Jeyifous works across installation, illustration, and public art, creating projects that reframe social, political, and environmental systems. His practice explores themes like climate change and inequality through works such as 'Nairobi 2081 A.D.' and 'Bodega Ecohaven,' which imagine resilient, community-focused infrastructures. Jeyifous's approach uses utopian thinking as a critical tool to challenge Western development narratives and center cultural specificity. His work has been featured in public installations like 'Crown Ether' at Coachella 2017 and projects for the Sharjah Architectural Triennial 2023.