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Whenhen an African art collector, exhibition organizer and art trader was gifted a pair of Yorùbá carved twin figures – ère ìbejì – in 2022 as a token for a successful business transaction, it signaled the beginning of a fresh passion. While he had previously encountered a handful of ìbejì sculptures in his uncle’s collection of traditional African artifacts, the present struck a chord with him, a twin himself.

“I have always been conscious of ìbejì but I will say my dedicated research was definitely a 2022 moment.”

“I have been collecting them since then,” states the collector, who trained as a lawyer in London. “I acquire from international sales and also every time I locate anybody in the country who owns them and wants to part with them or get rid of them, I acquire them.”

These Cultural Importance of Ère Ìbejì

The ère ìbejì are a physical representation of a distinctive spiritual, cultural and creative custom among Yorùbá people, who have one of the world’s highest twinning rates of twin births and are more than four times more likely to bear twins than Europeans.

The average twin rate of the Yoruba community of a Nigerian town in the nation's southwestern region, is an exceptionally high twin ratio, compared with a global average of about 12 per 1,000.

“In Yorùbá culture, twins occupy a position of profound sacred and social significance,” says a scholar who has researched ère ìbejì.

“The Yorùbá are reputed to have one of the highest twinning rates in the globe, and this phenomenon is interpreted not merely as a natural occurrence but as a sign of divine favor.

“Twins are regarded as bearers of prosperity, wealth and safeguarding for their families and communities,” the expert adds.

A Tradition of Honoring Twins

“If a twin passes away, sculpted representations [ère ìbejì] are crafted to accommodate the soul of the departed child, guaranteeing continued reverence and safeguarding the welfare of the surviving twin and the wider family.”

The figures, which are additionally sculpted for living twins, were taken care of like real babies: washed, anointed, breastfed, clothed (in the same dresses as the siblings, if living), decorated with ornaments, chanted and worshipped, and transported on female backs.

“I'm drawn to artists who engage with what twinhood signifies: duality, absence, companionship, continuity.”

They were sculpted with artistic characteristics – with protruding eyeballs, their cheeks often marked, and endowed adult traits such as genitalia and breasts. Most importantly, their skulls are large and immensely coiffed to represent each sibling's spirit, origin and fate, or orí.

The Resurgence Effort: The Ibeji Initiative

This tradition, nevertheless, has been largely lost. The ìbejì figures are scattered in overseas museums around the world, with the most recent dating from the mid-1950s.

So, in February 2023, the enthusiast initiated the Ibeji Initiative to reinvigorate the lived heritage of the custom.

“The Ìbejì Project is an educational and advocacy platform that introduces heritage artifacts to new audiences,” he says. “Twinhood is universal, but the Yoruba response – sculpting ère ìbejì as vessels for spirits – is distinctive and should be preserved as a living dialogue rather than static in collections abroad.”

In October 2024, he curated an ìbejì-focused exhibition in collaboration with a UK-based art space.

The initiative involves gathering authentic ère ìbejì, exhibiting them and pairing them with selected modern artworks that continues the tradition by exploring the themes of duality. “I'm drawn to artists who seriously engage with what twinship embodies: dual nature, loss, fellowship, continuity,” he states.

He thinks selecting modern artistic pieces – such as sculptures, installations, canvases or photos – that share creative and thematic parallels with ère ìbejì resituates the age-old custom in the present. “[This project] is a platform where contemporary creators create their personal responses, extending the dialogue into the present,” he adds.

“I am most satisfied when people who previously ignored heritage works start to collect it because of the initiative,” says the founder.

Future Ambitions and Global Impact

In the future, he aspires to publish a publication “to render the ìbejì heritage accessible to scholars and the wider public”.

He says: “Although based in Yoruba culture, the initiative is for the globe. Just as we study other societies, others should study our heritage with the same dedication.

“My hope is that they will no longer be seen as institutional oddities, but as components of a living, dynamic traditional legacy.”