Inside thecollective.
Creative Quarters Studio began with a simple idea — that makers working the same timber should not be working alone. Today it is a studio, a workshop, a showroom, and a calendar of exhibitions.
From one kiln to a full studio.
The studio was founded in 2025 in Lagos, around a single workbench and the conviction that craft is stronger held in common. Carvers joined, then joiners, then the people who keep a working studio standing.
We registered as Creative Quarters Studio Limited so the collective could take on interiors, commissions and exhibitions as one body — while every piece still passes through many individual hands.
A decade on, the method has not changed. We choose a material, we draw a form, and we let the slow work decide the rest.
The road so far.
The first workbench
The studio opens in Lagos — one room, one bench, and the conviction that craft is stronger held in common.
The collective forms
Carvers, joiners and finishers join the founder under one roof. Five pairs of hands, one signature.
First commissions
The first private commissions leave the workshop — seating and panels carved from locally sourced hardwood.
Raw Material
The studio's first annual collective exhibition opens at the CQS Showroom — every member, one piece each.
Hands at Work
The travelling exhibition on making crosses the border to the Nubuke Foundation in Accra.
Djakou Kassi Nathalie
Sculptor and creative director. Founded the studio to give a shared roof to makers working the same material.
“Makers should not work alone. The earth is the same — the hands should be too.”
The hands behind the work.
Emeka Obi
Leads the wood workshop. Reads grain the way other people read a page.
Aïcha Bello
Responsible for every joint in the studio. Builds the structures that hold the work standing.
Tunde Adeyemi
Develops the studio's finishing processes and oversees every surface before a piece leaves the workshop.
Grace Mensah
Holds the studio together — projects, timelines, and every exhibition CQS produces.
Four things the studio will not trade.
The studio has grown, but these have not moved. They decide which projects we take, and how every piece leaves the workshop.
Material honesty
We let wood be what it is. The grain leads, the hand follows — nothing is disguised as something else.
Many hands
Every piece passes through the collective. Authorship is shared, and the work is better for it.
Slow making
We keep the old methods because they hold. Speed has never been the point of this workshop.
Modern African form
Our vocabulary is contemporary and deeply rooted at the same time — and we see no contradiction in that.
Four steps, every time.
Conversation
Every project begins in talk — the brief, the site, the budget, the intent behind it.
Timber & form
We choose the wood and draw the form, building maquettes wherever they earn their place.
Making
The workshop takes over. Many hands, old methods, no shortcuts that the work would notice.
Placement
We deliver, install, and leave only once the work is standing exactly as it should.
We work in Wood.
See the catalogue