Taiwo Adeyemi's Lagos creative space started as a 100sqm room in 2024 for artists to co-work and collaborate; now it's expanding into a creative campus, complete with an art gallery, a larger gathering space and a continental vision for how people gather, modeled on the private creative clubs popular in London and New York.
Nelson C.J.NelsonC.J.Lagos-Based West Africa Correspondent
“We don't need more [spaces with] 2,000 or 5,000 seats for creative practices.”courtesy of Polygon
As with most great things, Taiwo Adeyemi was simply trying to solve a personal problem. He hadn’t intended to open a multidisciplinary creative space in the heart of Lagos, aptly named Polygon. As a talent manager working with everyone from actors to social entrepreneurs, Adeyemi always needed space. Not the large-capacity venues Lagos has in abundance; he wanted small, unconventional spaces to incubate small, unconventional ideas. Spaces modular enough to house everything from a flexible, unconfined co-working space to a reading, a meet-and-greet, a live music performance, or even an intimate panel session. If the program wouldn’t make sense in a traditional gallery or event space, it was a good fit for Polygon.
“I solve problems that I have for myself and then quickly realize that a lot more people have that problem,” Adeyemi tells OkayAfrica. “Lagos is obsessed with event centers and 1,000-seaters. And having massive halls like that is very counterintuitive to the creative dynamic of the average Nigerian,” Adeyemi explains. “We don't need more [spaces with] 2,000 or 5,000 seats for creative practices. We need smaller rooms. We need 400. We need 450. I started realizing that I want to be able to make that kind of space.”
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Polygon opened its doors in 2024 as a 100-sqm space set on the third floor of an old administrative building. Tucked amongst legal offices and corporate outfits, Polygon stood out in this traditional setting and in Lagos' ever-evolving creative scene.
“We knew that we wanted to introduce this unconventional style of co-creation in a space that was very, very orthodox,” Adeyemi says.
Despite its size (it was a single, free-flowing space with brutalist sensibilities), it hosted some of the most unforgettable artistic programs Lagos has seen in the past three years. It became a home for live music, listening sessions, film screenings, panel talks that also doubled as masterclasses, portrait sessions that had the form of live showcases, pop-up cafes that were also artist gatherings, live reading sessions, karaoke, etc. They’ve hosted artists of varying backgrounds, from writers to actors, singers to film directors, visual artists to photographers.
“If you can see somebody else that is going in the same direction as you are as a creator, how would that impact you? “courtesy of Polygon
Polygon has designed an accessible identity, one that invites artists into a relatively blank space and encourages them to fill it with their ideas - a welcome antithesis to a creative scene that often prides itself on exclusivity and selective access. This year, Adeyemi expanded that ambition.
This month, Polygon changed its address, leaving its 100-sqm beginnings behind for a much larger space and an expanded philosophy. “For the second phase of where we are going, what we're leaning on now is: find your people, as opposed to our original philosophy, which is making space,” Adeyemi explains a few days ahead of the opening of Polygon’s new space.
“If you can see somebody else that is going in the same direction as you are as a creator, how would that impact you? We don't want anybody to come to Polygon and host something by themselves or work alone. The idea of Polygon is that you come in there and you find a partner, or you come with a partner and you produce work together because we understand that as creative people, we don't have one side to our creativity.”
A Bold New Vision
Polygon’s new space isn’t tucked away inside a corporate building; it now has its own compound. Set inside an old medical laboratory with the same brutalist sensibilities, Polygon now has multiple spaces, folded into one large building. There’s a gallery, a larger modular programming space, a cafe, and an atrium. This spaciousness will enable Polygon to accommodate a wide range of artists at the same time. It also fits nicely with its ambition of being Africa’s first version of Soho House. As Nigeria’s creative economy booms, contributing an estimated $5 billion to $15 billion to GDP, physical space has become essential to the emergence of the country's artistic practices.
As Adeyemi puts it, the creative class has been persuasive in securing the infrastructure it needs to thrive. “When a practice becomes relevant enough on a global scale, every infrastructure that needs to support that practice must fall in place,” he says. “5 years ago it was hard for a creative person to raise money for a creative venture - it's still hard, but it's significantly easier because there's proof that creativity can actually become valuable on a global scale.”
Some of the other new programs at Polygon include an expansive music event, with a DJ session hosted recently and a listening session in the works. “We [also] have residencies for the first time because when people produce work, you don't want to introduce an urgency to the creative process. So if you need to stay the night on campus, we want to enable that,” Adeyemi says.
“All my projects have existed in the digital world, and I think the last frontier, especially with the boom of artificial intelligence, is physical gatherings.”courtesy of Polygon
For Adeyemi, Polygon is the creative project he’s instinctively been working toward all his life. “I'm grateful that I've made myself available for this work at this time of my life because everything I've done as a creative person or as an executive in the creative industry has led to this. All my projects have existed in the digital world, and I think the last frontier, especially with the boom of artificial intelligence, is that physical gatherings and physical spaces will become a premium, and I'm just excited I'm able to get ahead of that. This is my life's work.”
As the new phase of Polygon opens to the world, Adeyemi is optimistic that the need for creative third spaces will only grow. “I want to believe that the amount of space needed to fully accommodate what the creative practice of the African person is becoming is that we've not even scratched the surface.”
