Lateefat Modupeola Tobun does not draw a line between the loom and the laptop. In her hands, the traditional Yoruba tie-and-dye textile ADIRE is not a relic to be preserved behind glass, but a living material — one that can be folded, scanned, re-coloured and worn in spaces that don't physically exist.
Her route here was anything but obvious. An economist by training, with two master's degrees including one in Applied Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, Tobun could have spent her career in spreadsheets. Instead, she says, her heart chose colour.
I never wanted to choose between the hand and the machine. The work is most honest when both are in the room.
— Lateefat Tobun
That conviction is everywhere in her practice. A garment begins as indigo on cloth and ends as a digital couture piece you can wear in virtual space — the pattern carried faithfully from one medium to the next. The result feels at once ancestral and unmistakably new.
What makes the work resonate, beyond its craft, is its generosity. Tobun treats artificial intelligence as a collaborator rather than a shortcut, using it to extend hand-made work into something sustainable and scalable without losing the cultural story at its centre.
