AG: In ‘Constructing Eternity,’ you mention that the work involves real human stories alongside fictional ideas. How do you balance these elements to create a cohesive narrative?
IO: Eternity is extremely grounded in reality in the sense that the stories I’m telling through this world are either inspired by my lived experiences, or the ones of those around me. One of the best parts about being an artist is the ability to drive your personal narrative in really interesting ways. I approach developing Eternity as a writer would approach a novel – they build the world and set the tone, then decide what story is important to tell. By allowing Eternity to sit freely on the pendulum between reality and fiction, I’m giving myself an opportunity to connect with my community while encouraging the act of free, radical thinking. Balancing the reality with the fiction comes easy to me, because I’ve made a mental distinction where the reality deals with the innate humanity of the population and the core of the stories I’m trying to tell, while the fiction is more so in terms of the space, its specific characteristics and the context in which the population navigates the space.
AG: Your first monograph, ‘Friends in Eternity,’ focuses on Black life across the diaspora. What drove you to explore this theme, and how do you feel it connects with the broader narrative of ‘Constructing Eternity’?
IO: I wanted to make ‘Friends in Eternity’ because it was really important for me to archive my ideas in a physical way. I had just started developing and ideating Eternity, and it was a self-created platform that would allow me to convince other people of this idea I came up with in my room. For example, the book includes a conversation with my friend, Bunmi Agusto, who is also a world-builder developing ‘Within’. In the conversation, Bunmi and I compared and contrasted both of our visual universes and that taught me how to speak about Eternity and my specific approach to world building.
Although I wasn’t thinking about it in this way at the time, the monograph is basically my personal collection of references. It is the core foundational visual library for Eternity, and for ‘Constructing Eternity’, I found myself going back to the book to reference the imagery I’d created.