I have been sleeping on my love for the history of Africa and its people as some things are better incorporated with visual imagery of the words that are born from such a buried truth.
But it seems like that is slowly going to be a thing of the past thanks to a friend on my feed introducing me to an AI art generating android app namely Wonder. Though I had the pleasure of experiencing how it works through some TikTok videos, this is my first time interacting with a particular one and I already love it.
For me, it is how it can effortlessly create a customised image to amplify something my words are not enough to capture in seconds that seems so unbelievable. Do you know how hard I sometimes look for the perfect image to match my words?
All I am saying is that African stories lack visual representation in the digital realm... Art generators might change that.
After getting hooked by my first creation, the decaying flowers, I felt like trying to appease my nostalgic old soul and create what my ancestral folks looked like before we mistook colonialism as civilisation.
And the results tagged on my memories of growing up with the exact images in my artwork lessons -be it for historical context or otherwise.
Precolonial Kenya was a hub for traders from all over East Africa and bits of Southern Asia. In 1888, before the arrival of the white man -the British- Arabs involved in slave trading had a known route south of the Agikuyu nation as everyone knew trespassing their territory was met by instant death.
My tribesmen had a sense of community so human trafficking was largely flawed and as long as the Arabs didn't venture beyond their walls, they left them alone. I am sure the Arabian traders saw no need in provoking the people who would centuries later form a movement that would fight for freedom from the white man, his good book and his gun.
After they arrived at the northern side of Mt Kenya dating back to the 3rd century, my ancestors engaged in farming and territorial expansion until they established themselves in our current home, the Mt. Kenya region in the 13th century.
Yet the great Wikipedia has images or paintings as recent as a century old.
We can now agree that an AI art generator can help me give you and myself a chance to look into the past through a visual representation of a forgotten time. Can you imagine the power that these texts prompt hold?
Like I may not have a record of whom we believe is our matriarch but behold the digital artwork of Mumbi. If my memory serves me right, she resembles the tales I have heard of her but with her earlobes slit for beauty just like my grandmother.
These are my first creations and I intend on continuing to seek out my imagination until I can do it much better... But as you can imagine, this will be a part of my leaning toward art as a remedy for my healing spirit.
wambuku w.