Jeremiah Olayinka Ojo

Founder of Ilèkùn Wa

New York, New York

Jeremiah is a Nigerian-American Artist, Educator, and Experimental Preservationist whose practice centers on culture-based climate action and the digital stewardship of marginalized heritage. Bridging traditional materials science with cutting-edge reality capture, he explores how indigenous building technologies and community memory can drive modern climate resilience.

Founded in 2020 , his organization, Ilèkùn Wa, originally began solely as an artist advisory dedicated to cultivating opportunities for visual artists of African descent to create, sustain, and thrive in business. It provided project management, professional development workshops, strategic planning, and one-on-one coaching to hundreds of creatives globally. Recently, the organization has evolved: while continuing to offer its signature one-on-one artist coaching, it now also houses its own artistic and research-driven practice under Studio Ilèkùn Wa. Working under the moniker Oloye Orubòkè, his studio practice explores speculative histories, using photo emulsions, earthen sculptures, and historical object installations as forms of Cultural Technology to highlight Black spatial innovation.

Holding an M.A. in Art Business from Sotheby's Institute of Art at Claremont Graduate University and a B.S. in Public Policy and Nonprofit Management from Georgia State University, Jeremiah’s administrative expertise is matched by his technical rigor. Having recently earned his Certificate in Historic Preservation from SUNY Westchester, he is the recipient of numerous 2026 accolades. Funded by the Zabar Family Scholarship and the APTI Northeast Jill Verhosek Scholarship, he is executing a self-directed technical fellowship piloting the digital condition assessment of Geneva, NY’s rare 1840s earthen architecture. Backed by additional training from a CyArk Heritage Documentation Grant, he synthesizes thermal drone imaging and 3D digital twins to develop non-invasive, sustainable preservation roadmaps. He further applies culture-based climate action to the built environment through his TICRAT Arizona training in adobe and lime conservation, and holds Urban Green Council certifications in Construction Management and Fundamentals of Building Green.

Deeply committed to spatial advocacy and equitable systems, Jeremiah is a Certified Nonprofit Professional. He co-leads community engagement workshops for the "Reimagining the Enslaved African Burial Ground" project with Liminal SP , facilitates design charrettes for the New Jersey Monuments & Memorials Lab, and designs site-specific augmented reality (AR) monuments with the Kinfolk Tech Foundation. A former Adjunct Lecturer at Columbia University's Teachers College, his ultimate vision is to leverage spatial technologies and culture-based climate strategies to document, preserve, and advocate for African diasporic tangible and intangible heritage.