Why Ìtàn?

Before a child is able to tell their own story, their name can already carry part of it.

In Yoruba culture, choosing a name carries meaning. The circumstances surrounding a birth can hold particular significance. My father placed great importance on them. To him, they already said something about the child, their identity and sometimes their character.

My middle name, Eni Ìtàn, carries this relationship with storytelling. It can be understood as ‘a person who carries a story’.

This meaning stayed with me long before I understood its full significance. Through my work in arts and culture, I became interested in how stories are told, who carries them, what is passed on and what is lost.

The vision for Ìtàn began to take shape through this reflection. When we established Ìtàn, the name became the natural expression of a vision that had become collective: to create spaces where stories, cultures and knowledge meet, are shared and are passed on.