Design Engineering graduate and current staff member of Mac Eng Seke Fowode shares her talents with us to celebrate Black History Month.
Tell us a bit about yourself, program, grad year, and current role in Mac Eng.
My name is Seke Fowode. I am a multidisciplinary artist, creative director and design engineer from Lagos, Nigeria. I spend a lot of time creating music, art, and everything in between. I also run a music management company, where I brand and manage music talents, A&R, and executive produce & sound engineer most of the records. I am very much a creative head. I have always had a flair for the arts and took a peculiar interest in engineering. The combination of both worlds helped give my creativity more structure and definition. That combination is also what led me to Design Engineering.
I graduated from McMaster University in 2020 with a Masters in Engineering Design. I am currently working as a Web & Graphic designer for the Faculty of Engineering at McMaster.
What do you love most about being part of the Fireball Family?
I love the community. I love how innovation forward McMaster is and how there is a lot of attention paid to building and promoting ideas that matter and can make a positive impact in the world.
What advice would you share for Black Engineering students, or future ones?
I would say go after what you want and believe in. Even when the odds may be stacked against you, you can achieve whatever it is that you set your mind to, with the right amount of intention, discipline, and consistency. Your dreams are not too big, your dreams are not too crazy. It is only crazy until it happens.
What does Black History Month mean to you?
For many years, Black people were left out of the narrative when history was being told and recorded. A lot of Black pioneers in so many different fields with their names left out of the credits, lots of hidden figures.
Black History Month is how we rewrite history, the right way. It is how we create awareness on the stories and triumphs of Black people and show people that the Black stories matter just as much as every other story. It is how we celebrate Black excellence, both past and present.
In my current role, I had the opportunity to create a website celebrating Black History Month, which is one of my proudest projects with McMaster to date.
What does this art mean to you? What would you like others to take from it?
We are our ancestors, we are the future.
I believe we all carry within us pieces of the people that came before us. Our history is embedded within us. Our forefathers fought and achieved certain things so that we could harness that energy and build on it. Every day that I bring a pre-conceived vision to life, I know that it will find its way into the hearts of the people that will come after me. In that way, I think we are all leaders. What we do today is set to inspire generations. So, we owe it to ourselves and to the ones to come, to be our most authentic selves.
That is my legacy. To inspire those that are yet to be born. My diversity and creativity, my tenaciousness and boldness, my will to break barriers… Just by living out my purpose, I will inspire those that come after me to dream, unlimited.
This is it. This is how we write our souls in history.
