The world’s ocean of content arrives at our fingertips through magic devices, only to drown us in deepening and widening whirlpools of news, social media, emails, newsletters and ads. All this is algorithmically tailored to keep us addicted to the platforms that we empower, while simultaneously disenchanting society around us. Breaking this habit resembles that of one in rehab.

This whirlpool reconstructs itself into tsunamis large enough to engulf entire sovereign nations as the bureaucratic and political class have formed an addiction to a rather more elementary and potent drug: data. Data is the raw substrate from which content is created and when transformed, can tell any story one wishes.

Data is somewhat terse and uninspiring in the landscape of storytelling but like any tool, can be used for harm or help. As the world's policymakers have focused more on data to tell their stories, particularly in the West, the unmeasurable cultural fibre that defines distinct societies has diminished and helped to accelerate the globalisation of modern culture: evermore fragmented societies, increased isolation and an escalating feeling of futility in ones own actions and existence. The price and value of things are two separate matters, something which data can't comprehend.

From Clouded Origins

For all the types of storytelling that exist, myth stands to reason as the most powerful form. Myth has no owner, myth has no dimension. Myth is rooted in a time before time. Myths answer questions of the unknown as they bridge the gap between what exists now and what existed then. Myth makes its grand entrance when an origin story is required to legitimise one's existence. Myth outdoes science in this way, as it needs only belief to be powerful.

Myths burn brightly in Sub-Saharan Africa as the beliefs and traditions of previous generations are played out in daily life. The continent's young population continues prying itself from the neo-colonial entrenchment of its forebears, and attempts to level itself against those who would define this next century. The masses are migrating in the search for stability during this age of drastic change and an increasing exposure to the wider world is shifting the worldview from a local narrative towards a global one. A sense of loss is beginning to be felt in many parts of this vast land as languages are lost and nuanced stories defining the origins of its owners are untold. New myths will come to the fore, but in who's image? The reverberations of this outcome will be played out for generations.

One Must Exist in Reality

Cultures exists in the physical world and the beauty of a culture is in its demonstrable use and its collective ownership, with all its dreams of heaven, hell, mess, glory, sins, loves, hates, hopes and life in between. This project seeks not to be a seed bank of stories for some future instance of a collapsed world; the world is already lost if this is where the last of things are defended while devoid of their natural environment. This is not a taxidermalogical exercise in stripping the outermost layers of a story while lifelessly prostrating it on a webpage. This is not a museum to wonder at relics of the past. This is for the humanists to keep the neo-feudal technocratic fiefs at bay with their ever expanding grip and consumption of our cultures.

I remember being young, reading under twilight by a kerosene lantern which burned a dark orange flame in Ajegunle, Lagos, while surrounded by an amphitheatre like assembly of children from our compound. For this project to truly succeed, its contents must exit the screen and manifest physically in the new amphitheatres of the world. Sub-Saharan Stories is a humanist project in the guise of a database; a conservation project with aims to rehabilitate the environment for emboldening the storytelling of myths and folktales of times gone by. This is for the future child reciting tales great and small under twilight with the spirits, community, family, countrymen and ultimately themselves at the centre of their world.