Dozie Kanu

Anti-Climb Guiding Block, 2025

Lamp Mixed media components: Anti-climb raptor spikes, film reel, fume exhaust, chain links, electrical wiring, incense holder H 52 x W 17 x D 17 in (H 132 × W 43 × D 43 cm) Edition of 15 Anti-Climb Guiding Block transforms a utility object into a luminous, sculptural form. Suspended from black chains, the work assembles an unlikely trio of components; an industrial ventilation cap forming the base, a film spool, and a crown of anti-climb raptor spikes. Once designed to ward off and repel, the spikes have been composed into a radiant starburst, glowing softly like a celestial bloom. The piece plays with inversion. What was once a tool of exclusion becomes an object of intimacy, a nightlight that offers safety within the domestic setting. The starkness of metal is tempered by the warmth of light, recasting security not as a barrier but as a beacon. Each scavenged element had to be reimagined through drawings and rearrangement, balancing a spirit of improvisation with the discipline of craft. The result is a lamp that displays contradiction and grace, both protective and inviting.

Dozie Kanu was born in Houston, Texas, and is based between Texas and Portugal. His sculptural practice operates at the threshold between art and design, assembling cast-off industrial materials into objects that are both functional and defiant. Chairs, barriers, and platforms recur throughout his work—structures that invite use but resist classification. Though rooted in utility, these forms occupy the same critical and cultural space as conceptual art. Their charge lies not in spectacle but in how they quietly unsettle ideas of value, authorship, and identity—particularly Black identity within the language of minimalist design. Kanu has exhibited internationally, with recent presentations at Project Native Informant, London; Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Essen; and The Studio Museum in Harlem. “I often think about my work through the lens of athletics,” Kanu says. “For me, the function of the objects I create becomes a kind of conceptual shield—something that allows me to move past judgment. Everything comes down to repetition, muscle memory, the endless grind of getting your reps in.” For Side Hustle, he extends this ethos into new territory with Anti-Climb Guiding Block, a pendant lamp, an edition of fifteen. “It forced me to think about reproducibility without losing the improvisational spirit of the found,” he explains. The result transforms the spontaneity of the found into the controlled process of a limited edition.