Yinka Ilori’s, British designer of Nigerian heritage, known for his bold colour and playful interventions that bring delight to public spaces, has opened his latest exhibition ‘Joy through Resistance: He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best’. The exhibition is his most personal body of work to date, shifting the conversation away from joy as an aesthetic and towards joy as a form of survival. For Ilori, joy is not an escape from hardship, instead, it emerges through it. The exhibition’s title, borrowed from a proverb familiar across many cultures, speaks to perseverance rather than celebration alone, the “last laugh” belongs to those who endure.
Showcasing at London’s Cristea Roberts Gallery, the exhibition marks Ilori’s first solo gallery presentation in his home city. The exhibition features paintings, prints, sculpture and an immersive sound installation. Visually, floral motifs pair the Nigerian yellow trumpet flower with the British daffodil, creating a visual dialogue between Ilori’s Nigerian heritage and his London upbringing. The recurring use of lace references both memory of home life and the ceremonial traditions of West African communities, where fabric becomes a symbol of dignity, pride and self-expression.
Music and sound play an equally important role. Handmade congas and lace-wrapped percussion instruments form part of an immersive installation developed with composers Peter Adjaye and James William Blades. Through layered recordings, hymns and rhythms, the gallery becomes a space where memory is experienced as much through sound as through visuals.
The exhibition also echoes themes explored in the accompanying film Joy Through Resistance: He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best, which positions joy as a collective practice rooted in community, culture and shared experience. Rather than presenting optimism as naïve or passive, Ilori frames it as an active response to uncertainty and displacement – promoting joy as a form of resistance.
