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When a Nigerian art collector, exhibition organizer and dealer was gifted a set of Yorùbá twin statuettes – ère ìbejì – in recent years as a token for a fruitful art deal, it signaled the beginning of a fresh obsession. While he had seen before a handful of ìbejì sculptures in his relative’s collection of traditional African artifacts, the present struck a chord with the collector, a twin himself.

“I have always been aware of ìbejì but I must admit my passionate investigation was certainly a 2022 moment.”

“I have been collecting them ever since,” states he, who trained as a lawyer in London. “I buy back from international sales and additionally whenever I locate anybody in the country who has them and wants to part with them or get rid of them, I acquire from them.”

The Traditional Importance of Ère Ìbejì

The ère ìbejì are a physical embodiment of a unique spiritual, traditional and artistic tradition among Yoruba communities, who possess one of the world’s highest twinning rates of twins and are significantly more likely to bear twins than Europeans.

The average birthrate of the Yoruba community of Igbo-Ora in the nation's southwestern region, is an exceptionally high twin ratio, versus a worldwide average of about 12 per 1,000.

“Among the Yoruba people, twin children hold a position of profound sacred and social importance,” explains a researcher who has studied ère ìbejì.

“The Yorùbá are reputed to have an elevated twinning rates in the world, and this phenomenon is viewed not merely as a biological event but as a indication of heavenly favor.

“Twins are regarded as bearers of good fortune, wealth and safeguarding for their households and societies,” the expert adds.

A Custom of Venerating Twin Spirits

“If a twin dies, sculpted representations [ère ìbejì] are created to house the soul of the departed child, ensuring continued reverence and safeguarding the welfare of the surviving twin and the wider kin.”

The statuettes, which are also carved for living twin pairs, were taken care of like real babies: bathed, anointed, breastfed, dressed (in the same dresses as the twins, if living), decorated with ornaments, sung and worshipped, and transported on female backsides.

“I'm drawn to artists who interact with what twinship represents: dual nature, loss, partnership, permanence.”

They were carved with artistic characteristics – with bulgy eyeballs, their faces often scarified, and given mature features such as genitalia and breasts. Most importantly, their skulls are big and hugely coiffed to represent each twin’s spirit, creation and fate, or orí.

A Revival Initiative: This Ìbejì Initiative

This custom, however, has been largely forgotten. The ìbejì figures are dispersed in overseas institutions around the world, with the most recent originating in the 1950s era.

So, in February 2023, the collector initiated the Ibeji Initiative to revitalise the living history of the custom.

“This initiative is an educational and awareness platform that introduces heritage artifacts to modern audiences,” he explains. “Twinhood is global, but the Yorùbá reaction – sculpting ère ìbejì as containers for souls – is distinctive and must be preserved as a living conversation rather than static in collections overseas.”

In late 2024, he organized an ìbejì-focused exhibition in collaboration with a London art space.

The project involves collecting authentic ère ìbejì, displaying them and pairing them with selected contemporary art that extends the heritage by exploring the themes of twinness. “I am attracted to artists who deeply interact with what twinship embodies: duality, loss, fellowship, endurance,” the collector states.

He thinks selecting contemporary artistic pieces – such as sculptures, artistic setups, paintings or photos – that possess creative and thematic parallels with ère ìbejì resituates the ancient custom in the current era. “[This project] is a platform where modern artists produce their personal responses, carrying the dialogue into the now,” he says.

“I'm most satisfied when people who previously dismissed heritage works begin to acquire it because of the initiative,” notes the collector.

Upcoming Ambitions and Worldwide Influence

Next, he hopes to publish a publication “to render the ìbejì tradition available to scholars and the broader public”.

He says: “Although rooted in Yoruba culture, the initiative is for the globe. Just as we study other cultures, others should research ours with the same dedication.

“My hope is that they will not be viewed as museum oddities, but as part of a living, breathing traditional legacy.”