Harvesting Transgenerational Joy
TED

In a deeply personal TED Talk, Yinka Ilori explores how joy can be passed from generation to generation through stories, rituals, music, community, and memory.

Raised by Nigerian parents on a council estate in North London, Ilori reflects on the everyday moments that shaped his creative world: house parties filled with colour and music, church gatherings, family rituals, and the objects and symbols carried from Nigeria into their life in the UK. What once felt ordinary later revealed itself as something much deeper: inherited joy, passed on quietly through care, resilience, and togetherness.

Through storytelling, animation, and audience participation, Ilori shares how he transforms memories into symbols and visual narratives. Drawing from his own archive of shapes, patterns, and motifs, he reveals how seemingly small moments- sunlight, food, nature, movement, laughter- can hold emotional meaning across generations.

Ahead of the talk, Ilori's audience was invited to share memories and symbols connected to joy in their own lives. These responses were analysed, transformed into new visual motifs, and ultimately woven into a collective artwork revealed live during the talk.

Harvesting Joy is an exploration of heritage, identity, and human connection. It asks audiences to reconsider the memories, rituals, and emotions they already carry within them, and to recognise that joy is often not something we create from nothing, but something we uncover, nurture, and pass on.

The TED Talk will be published on August 5th 2026.

Client
TED

Practice
Experience