Anderson’s spatial intelligence through architectural fashion and interior design upcycles chaos both in its materiality and Immateriality into culturally habitable , wearable and sustainable African designs.
“Chaos (Jagajaga) is my creative playground. For me, chaos isn’t destruction,it is the possibility of order out of disorder. Regardless of the design medium, they are just stages where my chaos gets to perform and create” It is this chaos philosophy that allows him the fluidity of movement to creating couture label line “Thirteez”, and designing immersive interiors with “S.ea Experience” both respectively reimagining how Africans wear and inhabit their spaces.
Anderson’s story begins with childhood restless curiosity. He stated “I was basically that kid who wouldn’t sit still in class as I prefer to wander around with my childhood imaginations and explore my environment and I just never grew out of it. Even though Geophysics as a tertiary course of study gave me scientific depth to life, art and design gave me the lens to creatively see life culturally and while my evolution to hospitality depicts the soulfulness of my humanity . So when you put all that together, you don’t just get a designer, you get a very proactive human continuously playing the roles life assigns him”
As a design genius, his nonconforming credo has been instrumental for his career’s transformation. For him, Chaos and Creativity are the parents of Structure (Design).
His designs’ narrate the stories embedded in rebellion, survival and resilience. He said, “Survival makes you resourceful, rebellion makes you fearless, and resilience makes you resolutely hopeful. My design lives where those three collide. I can make a chair out of scrap wood, turn it into a protesting art piece that narrates the story of an entire community that have suffered environmental pillage. Creativity is not for creativity sake.”
Nowhere is this more evident than in his approach to African spaces. Spaces in Africa have always been sacred, from the family backyard to the village square. It’s where memory is built and where collective identity is seen and heard. He further said ,”My intent with S.ea Experience and Thirteez is to bring that tradition to a new generation. Our wears and spaces as Africans are unapologetically bold characters in our cultural stories”
Anderson is part generation of creatives who see design not just as service or product but as cultural statement of identity and he’s not shy about his aspiration which is to make Africa dream bigger and expand in their collective identity. For Africa and beyond, his work is a both manifesto and mirror.
