Interview by Sofia Hallström Portrait by Jose Pedro Cortes

SH The Second Shadow feels like a deeply collaborative show. Your installation brings together works by many artists within an enclosed structure made with reinforced cardboard, its tape-lined walls inscribed with the word “haptic”, and positioned opposite Marc Camille Chaimowicz’s Jean Cocteau (2003–2014).

DK Collaborating with many artists was an intentional decision. When I was first brought to the show, the curators wanted me to respond to Marc Camille Chaimowicz’s installation. But since his installation was dedicated to another artist, I thought I should try to inhabit some of that spirit, too. I ended up including a lot of artists that I admire.

SH I was reading about your entry into design, furniture design specifically, through set design. How did that evolve?

DK I studied production design for film and theatre, which was my focus at the School of Visual Arts in New York. At the time, I was forced to find a job because my parents weren’t in a position to support me. I was stubborn about it: I made a point that I wouldn’t work in food and beverage or retail, because I wanted whatever I was doing to be creatively stimulating. But it’s difficult to find that kind of work when you don’t have a resume or portfolio yet.

I was lucky enough to land a position at an interior design studio in Chelsea. That was really my art education in a sense, or at least the catalyst for me to start thinking about exhibition-making. I would go to all the galleries in that area every day, before and after work. It would be midday, so I’d often be the only one in these large gallery spaces. They were almost like religious experiences: being alone with a huge John Chamberlain sculpture, for instance. When you don’t know that much about art yet, you’re forced to ask yourself: why does this have a platform? Why does this get preserved in this way? I gradually made my way to museums, too, and then eventually I decided to make my first object.

I was lucky to have a friend in clothing designer Matthew Williams. This was around the time he was just starting his brand, 1017 ALYX 9SM. We had a tiny studio on St Mark’s Place, and when I showed him the object I’d made, he was really excited about it and wanted to have it photographed professionally. He sent the images to Nick Knight’s studio, and Nick Knight ended up doing a blog post about my first works. That’s really what got the ball rolling in terms of people knowing about me.

Shortly after that, I was asked to participate in a small group exhibition with some young artist friends, and then a larger exhibition, and things just kept going from there. At a certain point, I made a very conscious decision not to be grouped within the context of collectible design. I was making functional objects, but I was inspired by what I was seeing in galleries, and I felt that context was holding me back. Collectors were asking me to make things in different sizes and different colours, and that wasn’t really what I imagined for myself. So that’s partly how I ended up relocating and trying to start fresh.

SH The exhibition text mentions that your response to his installation is a somewhat distant one. Were there specific strands of his practice that you wanted to pay homage to?

DK The installation he put up is itself a homage to Jean Cocteau. There’s an interview I referenced while developing the show concept where he says he admires Cocteau for his ability to work across so many different disciplines and his presence in popular culture.

For me, I try to make sure that my work is pushed closer to popular culture. Not only because I have friends who are superstars in their own right, but because it would do culture a real service if more Black figures were working in spaces that challenge prescribed career paths. I’m trying to make people aware of the many ways to escape intergenerational poverty, beyond taking on the normalised roles of athlete or musician, for example – these more dematerialised forms of expression. I’m engaging heavily with material, which requires capital and makes it much more difficult. But I think that difficulty is worth hurdling, just to open up the pathway.

SH You often work with found or repurposed materials that are rooted in the African diaspora. How do these material histories interact with European lineage in this show?

DK I think it all converges. I recently did a photo shoot for a magazine in Lagos, Portugal, which was one of the first ports the Portuguese sailed from during the early modern Age of Discovery, before landing in West Africa, which is where Lagos, Nigeria gets its name. My parents spent part of their youth in Lagos, Nigeria, before migrating to Houston, Texas, where I was born. And now here I am, living in Lisbon without fully knowing that history when I arrived. The work I make is a response to that history, emblematic of the convergence of identities, like an African modernism that’s also postmodern, in a sense.

In practical terms, using found material is also essential for me to keep making at the rate I make. I can’t fabricate everything from scratch, so instead I’ve built up a long list of places I like in Portugal: junkyards, scrap metal yards, antique shops, little garage sale spots, where I look for forms that interest me. Sometimes it’s not even the whole object, just a part of it: the legs of a table, the handle of something. I end up hoarding everything in my warehouse, and then when a deadline comes, that’s when the work really starts to take shape. I’m forced to look at what I have and start putting things together.

SH Looking at Chaimowicz's work too, there’s this sense of hospitality and interior space, but also this tension where you can’t actually sit down or use anything. Is domesticity something you’re drawn to?

DK I think it’s a metaphor for interiority. A huge part of being an artist is looking inward and figuring out who you are, what separates you from others, finding your individuality. But it’s also a strategic luring mechanism for people who don’t come from the art world. I understand that people from impoverished communities don’t typically engage with the arts in the same way as, say, a wealthy art-world-adjacent class. So if I’m making immediately recognisable objects that people can relate to instinctively, that’s one way of drawing them in. Then framing those objects in an art context opens them up to a completely different way of seeing. .