Elegant Orisha at the Fowler Museum: Honoring Yoruba Sacred Arts in "The House Was Too Small"

Elegant Orisha reflects on their participation in The House Was Too Small at the Fowler Museum, where their handcrafted works honoring Eleguá, Osain, and Orishaoko were featured. 

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Elegant Orisha at the Fowler Museum: Honoring Yoruba Sacred Arts in "The House Was Too Small"

Elegant Orisha at the Fowler Museum: Honoring the Sacred in The House Was Too Small

We’re honored to have participated in The House Was Too Small: Yoruba Sacred Arts from Africa and Beyond, an extraordinary exhibition at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. This powerful, global showcase features over 100 sacred works that highlight the rich religious and artistic traditions of the Yoruba people—from West Africa to vibrant diasporic communities across the Americas.

Our contribution included handcrafted beadwork pieces dedicated to the Orishas Eleguá, Orishaoko, Osain, and Oshosi. Each piece was made in reverence to the divine and designed to reflect the spiritual essence of these Orishas through a contemporary lens. Our goal is to bridge tradition and modern practice through art that honors Yoruba cosmology and its ongoing relevance in today’s world.

Seeing our offerings included in a show of this magnitude—curated with insights from scholars, artists, and practitioners—was deeply meaningful. The House Was Too Small doesn't simply present religious artifacts; it brings to life the spiritual resilience, cultural transformation, and global impact of Yoruba-derived faiths like Ifá, Lucumí, and Candomblé.

Our piece for Eleguá, the divine messenger and opener of roads, welcomed visitors at a symbolic threshold—mirroring the journey into deeper spiritual understanding. Artworks devoted to Orishaoko (Orisha of agriculture), Osain (master of healing herbs), and Oshosi (hunter and seeker of justice) carried layered meanings, connecting ancestral wisdom with modern identity and liberation movements.

We were especially moved by the exhibition’s emphasis on lived experience—through community-written labels and installations like Free Us by Patrisse Cullors, which show how Yoruba spirituality continues to fuel activism, healing, and cultural pride.

The House Was Too Small reminds us that the sacred cannot be contained—it evolves, it travels, it adapts. We are proud to have played a part in this collective storytelling and honored to stand alongside so many gifted artists, practitioners, and visionaries who continue to carry these traditions forward.

To everyone who experienced The House Was Too Small, we hope you felt more than inspired—we hope you felt seen, invited, and spiritually affirmed.

Elegantly yours,
The Elegant Orisha Team

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