For Yinka Ilori's TED Talk, he asked his Instagram audience to submit a series of responses to questions around their earliest memories of joy. The responses were translated into an eclectic array of symbols, including love hearts, nature imagery, hands, and pots. Yinka told us a little about what some of these symbols mean to him personally.
Growing up in North London on a large council estate, Yinka Ilori's summers were spent outdoors and immersed in community life. "The tree represents me spending summers in my local park in Islington and playing with my community on these big oak trees."
Yinka's family regularly hosted house parties for the neighbours, featuring big sound systems, lots of food, singing, and dancing. "The pot for me reminds me of my mum, being on the estate and smelling that amazing jollof rice being cooked and the smell and of the smoke coming out of the window and feeding into the estate, amazing."
"The symbol of feet running around and just playing and those noises, those sounds that your feet make when you're running around having fun."
"The idea of trans-generational joy is how we look at those seeds that were given to us from when we were young. How they impact our life and our everyday being in society, how that impacts how we engage people and how we inspire people."
"I think all these symbols are deep rooted in my personal experiences, but I also think it's quite beautiful that I can also find a connection to someone else's trans-generational joy, because if you look at it the work is actually passing that on. So I think looking at these responses from people at TED, I really feel like I'm living in their joy just by them even just passing it on and being on this artwork. I can look at it every day and sort of experience their memories or their joy."
This conversation has inspired a new limited edition print, available now.
Yinka Ilori's TED Talk on harvesting trans-generational joy is online and available for the public to watch from 4pm (UK time) on Weds 5th August, at www.ted.com.
You can read more about the project here.
