Painted in Sacred Soil — Help Voice the Ancestors Across the Diaspora

Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria — the cradle of Yorùbá civilisation. The place where the Òrìṣà walked the earth, where the stories that shaped a people were first breathed into being.

For painter, textile artist and sculptor Oluwatobi Adedayo Olumide, founder of Decision Sacred Art Gallery in Ilé-Ifẹ̀, the soil beneath his feet is not just earth — it is memory. It is ancestry. It is home.

His ongoing collection, Voice of the Ancestors, is painted using soil pigment on canvas — meaning every piece carries within it the literal ground of Yorùbá sacred land. Through his art, Oluwatobi brings to life the living stories of Yorùbá culture: the Òrìṣà, the oral traditions, the spiritual heritage that colonisation tried to silence but never could.

For African and Afro-descendant people scattered across the diaspora — whether in Aotearoa, the UK, the Americas, or beyond — these works offer something rare and precious: a direct, physical connection to their roots. Not a representation of home. Home itself. Embedded in pigment. Carried across oceans.

Your contribution helps Oluwatobi continue the Voice of the Ancestors collection, keep sacred Yorùbá stories alive, make these works accessible to diaspora communities worldwide, and sustain an independent African sacred art space rooted in Ilé-Ifẹ̀.

This is more than a fundraiser. It is an act of ancestral reclamation.

Give what you can. Share widely. Help carry the voice of the ancestors home — wherever home may be.