Lusaka

While Europeans can open a history book to learn about their past, in African countries history was performed, sang or told. Moving away from dealing with history in a chronological way, I got interested in the various ways oral retellings of history are inherently part of various cultures over the African continent. This project takes the lukasa as a starting point. The lukasa is a memory board that was used by people from the Democratic Republic of Congo. I have made a modern version of the lukasa board with actual wires, electronics and coding. By connecting an arduino, it was turned into an interactive device. Touching the instrument results into a sound or a feeling, and that translates into a story, like a modern take on storytelling.