Ayọ̀ tí kò ní òpin: Wearing Endless Joy

Today, as Adidas Originals celebrates Nigeria's next generation of creativity, collaboration and culture in Lagos, I am joining the feeling from Abuja in the way I know best: by making something with my hands, putting it on my body, and letting it move.

This is Ayọ̀ tí kò ní òpin — Endless joy. It is a handmade indigo-blue adire and batik piece built from my own motifs, made during a small project at the Nike Art Gallery in Abuja with the IT students at the workshop. I could not travel to Lagos for today's gathering, so I made my own point of connection: a wearable canvas, a painting, and a run through the city.

A motif becomes a garment

The design began as a visual language: repeated marks, symbols and gestures arranged like a map. I was interested in what happens when the motifs leave the wall and take on a human rhythm. On cloth, they do not stay still. They stretch with the body, catch the light, and become part of a walk, a conversation, or a run.

Indigo gives the piece its depth. Batik gives it a memory of process — resist, colour, patience, and the small surprises that happen when the pattern is revealed. Working alongside the students made the project feel even more alive: knowledge moved across the table, and the workshop became both classroom and studio.

From motif study and dye work to the finished piece at the Nike Art Gallery, Abuja.

Ayọ̀ tí kò ní òpin

In Yoruba, ayọ̀ is joy. Tí kò ní òpin means that it has no end. I chose the name because joy here is not a decoration placed on top of difficulty. It is an active practice — something we make, share and carry forward.

That is why I wore it and ran. The run was simple, but it mattered: a proof that the work can leave the gallery and enter everyday life. It can breathe, sweat, travel, and meet the street. Art does not become smaller when it becomes useful. Sometimes it becomes more honest.

The piece in motion — worn, tested and carried into the city.

One city, one conversation

From Abuja to Lagos, Nigerian creativity is not happening in one room. It is in the workshop, on the road, in the gallery, on the body, and online. This project is my small contribution to that wider conversation: a meeting between adire, batik, painting, student collaboration and movement.

And at the centre is the painting Ayọ̀ tí kò ní òpin (Endless joy) — handmade, full of colour, and connected to the same motifs that travelled onto the cloth. The canvas and the garment are not separate worlds. They are two ways of carrying the same joy.