The Progress of Love Pt. I
Taiye Idahor

An homage to Bisi Silva and her legacy, this episode delves into The Progress of Love, the exhibition she curated in 2012 in collaboration with the Menil Collection and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. As curatorial assistant for The Progress of Love, Taiye sheds light on the main premise of the show, how different questions were thought through an African point of view and challenged cultural views, such as same-sex relationships or even PDA, public displays of affection. Through her own artwork and practice, Taiye discusses love as process, as well as themes including history, race and memory reflecting on concepts of love through different forms of manifestation.


Taiye Idahor lives and works in Lagos Nigeria. She studied Fine Art at the Yaba College of Technology in Lagos Nigeria and graduated in 2007 with a Higher National Diploma (HND) in sculpture.
     Idahor has worked consistently and significantly within the concepts of identity exploring women’s issues using “hair” as a visual language in her work. Tangled through the issues of trade, beauty, the environment and globalisation, she examines how these factors build women’s identity including her own. Idahor uses collage, drawing, sculpture and mixed media to contemplate these ideas through the lens of memory, culture and modernity, directly confronting the issues surrounding women in Nigeria, their daily struggle, interaction and navigation of culture and tradition in the modern world.
     Idahor has exhibited both locally and abroad, and her work forms part of the permanent collections of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Cape Town, Wellesley College Massachusetts, Princeton University Art Museum New Jersey, and the Brooklyn Museum New York.

Taiye Idahor, Iguodala, 2017, Collage, pen and color pencil on paper. (Photo: Taiye Idahor)

01 The Progress of Love, 2012, CCA Lagos
02 The Progress of Love Weekend, 2012, CCA Lagos
03 Taiye Idahor, Hairvolution, 2014
04 Taiye Idahor, Ivie series, 2015 to date