Imagining African stories, culture, with AI

After Engineer Nzube Ndiokwelu has sketched ideas on paper at his studio in Enugu, southern Nigeria, he turns for help not to an assistant but to his AI, typing prompts into a picture generator.

If the results fall short of his expectations, he revises his instructions and creates new graphics, fine-tuning his creations until they better portray the cultural references he has in mind.

This is the approach Ndiokwelu has utilized to create graphic representations of Igbo deities, traditions, and indigenous identity, with the goal of conserving his culture and assisting African communities to better see themselves.

When Ndiokwelu initially started experimenting with AI picture generators in December 2022, he discovered that representations of African people tended to resemble black Americans rather than the communities and customs he wished to depict. When he looked for Igbo culture, the results tended towards visual stereotypes.

“Some of the models are going to start leading with beads and cowries. And our society is much more than that; we have our clothing patterns, headgear, and so much more,” he explained.

Instead of abandoning the technology, Ndiokwelu decided to lead it with his knowledge of Igbo history and custom. He outlines his ideas, converts them into prompts, checks the created visuals, and modifies his directions if the results fall short.

Through this method, he is creating visual representations of his culture while also exploring how artificial intelligence may assist African communities in documenting and sharing their past.

His experience speaks to broader issues about how artificial intelligence depicts African people and traditions. A 2024 Nature article revealed an experiment in which an AI picture generator represented an African man with a tiny mud house, despite a prompt requesting a “fancy house”.

According to a study involving 130 creatives and other industry players in Kenya, more than 75% employed AI technologies. However, participants expressed worries about Western biases and a lack of African information in AI systems.

The findings highlighted the significance of incorporating African artists and cultural specialists in the design of visuals that these technologies use to generate graphic representations of Africans and African society.

Chidi Igbokwe, creative director and founder of the Dusky Arts Foundation for Creative Development, refers to visual art as a way of helping societies remember their history, beliefs, and ways of life. AI might expand on that function by making cultural information easier to preserve and access, he explained, if the material used to guide the technology is accurate.

“Why AI will still help preserve our culture is because of the information we, the culture, the tradition, or the custodians pass on to it. AI will store and preserve that information for our future use. Do you understand? That is actually how it works. So, in the future, when our children want to ask what Mkpurumma is, AI can tell them what it is, because that information will always be available to them,” he said.

Ndiokwelu’s passion for art developed during childhood vacations at his aunt’s house, where he saw his artist cousin at work. His aunt collected art, and chats with his cousin.

This exposed him to international artistic traditions, such as pointillism and Renaissance art. Although he obtained no formal art education, his experiences impacted his passion in visual expression.

He later studied electrical engineering at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. Following graduation, he relocated to Lagos in 2021 to work as a technical assistant to Nest Oil’s group managing director. His exposure to technology and growing digital technologies inspired him to explore.

In 2022, he resigned his job and went to Enugu to start The Beaconsmith Collective, a community for people working in creative and technological industries. The collaborative offers a forum for creators to exchange ideas, gain new skills, and study how technology could improve their work.

Through this group, Ndiokwelu began experimenting with AI-generated art. He recognized an opportunity to integrate his technological knowledge with his cultural interests, utilizing the resources at his disposal to create visuals that conveyed his personal interpretation of Igbo identity.

With a deep interest in Igbo philosophy, history, and cosmology, Ndiokwelu feels that techniques based on cultural knowledge should guide how African traditions are portrayed in digital contexts.

For him, AI is another medium through which people can express ideas. He sees its use in art as part of a longer history of changing artistic tools.

“During prehistoric eras, art was expressed on cave walls, and during the Renaissance, art moved onto the canvas,” he said.

Igbokwe encourages artists to use correct cultural references and to consider copyright when choosing material for their work. His statement emphasizes a crucial distinction: AI-generated images can help with cultural preservation, but their utility is dependent on the quality of the knowledge that informs them and the care shown by those who create them.

He believes that the technology utilized to create an artwork does not determine its worth. Even when a machine contributes to the final image, the artist’s goal, knowledge, and creative decisions are still important.

According to Ndiokwelu, people occasionally mistake his AI-assisted pieces for hand-painted works.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the time, they mistake the AI arts for hand-painted arts,” he says. Some ask to touch the surface or inspect the work for brushstrokes.”

Ndiokwelu’s work has also generated commercial attention. He showcased some of his AI-assisted artworks at the 17th National Council on Industry, Trade, and Investment, which took place at the Hotel Presidential in Enugu. The hotel manager then commissioned him to create 20 framed artworks, which are now on display in various locations of the hotel.

The commission allowed Ndiokwelu to build a collection based on a client’s specifications rather than simply selling individual works he had previously done. It also demonstrated how AI-assisted art may be used to create commissioned visual creations.

He has created over 5,000 AI-assisted artworks, some of which have been sold, while others remain in his digital library or are presented through the Beaconsmith Collective. The tangible items are priced based on size, printing materials, frame, and finish.

Smaller works typically sell for ₦30,000 to ₦40,000 (around 23 to 30 US dollars), while larger pieces might cost between ₦80,000 and ₦120,000 (around 60 to 90 US dollars).

“What we charge is basically post-production. We don’t charge for something we feel we had fun producing,” he said.

Beyond his own work, Ndiokwelu encourages other young Africans to investigate the artistic and practical applications of AI. At Beaconsmith, he has assisted younger creators in moving beyond utilizing technology to just ask questions or generate textual responses.

Chisom Bierechukwundu Okechukwu, a graduate and the collective’s ecosystem and growth manager, is one of them.

Before joining Beaconsmith, Okechukwu saw AI primarily as a tool for asking questions and receiving responses. He has subsequently learnt to utilize it to build websites and mobile applications, develop graphics and fliers, and experiment with new applications.

‘Before now, I would typically pay a graphics designer or beg my designer friends for a flyer, but right now, I don’t do that anymore. I create time and create my artworks myself. I use the voice record prompt options to express myself and it creates. I’ve been able to create an app from scratch to full deployment with Ai.

Also with knowledge of AI and the things I’ve learnt at the Beaconsmith house, I have won a competition in this niche. I’m not just looking at (what) AI can do for me, but how it can help me do most of the things I want to do for myself,” Okechukwu said.

This experience highlights another option for African communities: providing young people with the ability to use AI in ways that address local needs, such as artistic creation and cultural documentation.

Ndiokwelu’s work is ongoing. He believes his trials and feedback have helped to improve the representation of Igbo and African culture in the photos he creates. However, he admits that getting the art seen remains difficult.

Among the most difficult tasks: “marketing, getting the word of what we do out there, and visibility.”

As the day comes to a close, Ndiokwelu adds the finishing touches to a sketch on a piece of paper, meticulously polishing the lines and details. The last strokes signal the conclusion of a day spent exploring how art and AI might bring cultural history to life.

As Ndiokwelu combines his mechanical skills with his knowledge of Igbo customs to create visual representations of cultural figures and stories that may otherwise be forgotten in digital spaces, he envisions a future in which African artists actively shape AI-generated pictures rather than simply consuming them.

Wrritten by Vera Chidinma