WHO TELLS OUR STORIES?
A Manifesto by Red Soil Collective
There is a quiet violence in being spoken for,
There is an even louder one in being erased.
Across the continent and beyond, Africa has long been a subject, rarely the storyteller. From colonial archives to museum walls, from NGO documentaries to fashion runways, the narrative of Africa has been curated, captioned, and circulated by others. Often with good intentions, always with consequences.
At Red Soil Collective, we ask a simple but urgent question, who tells our stories?
And more importantly, what happens when we do?
I. THE COLONIAL IMPRINT ON OUR IMAGE
The global perception of Africa was not authored by Africans.
Much of what the world believes about this continent stems from a legacy of colonization, not just of land and people, but of imagination. Early anthropologists, missionaries, and explorers documented African life not to understand it, but to “study” and “civilize” it. Their images, writings, and exhibitions were not acts of storytelling, they were acts of power.
To this day, many international publications still default to depicting Africa in binaries, poverty or prosperity, tradition or modernity, despair or dance. Real stories, complex, contradictory, layered, rarely make the cut.
The consequence, a generation of Africans growing up without a mirror, only a window.
II. THE COST OF OUTSOURCED NARRATIVES
When others tell our stories, they decide what’s important. What’s beautiful? What’s worth funding? What’s worth archiving?
- In 2018, only less than 3% of African art in major global museums was created post-1970, despite the explosion of contemporary work on the continent.
- UNESCO reports that nearly 90% of African cultural heritage is housed outside Africa, mostly in European institutions.
- In Nollywood, one of the largest film industries in the world, distribution networks and investment still favor stories that fit Western tropes of “African-ness.”
The result is a disconnect between how we live and how we are remembered.
At Red Soil Collective, we believe the solution isn’t just inclusion, its ownership.
III. STORYTELLING AS LAND
In many African traditions, storytelling is not entertainment, it is territory. It is how we inherit identity, define belonging, and pass on wisdom. In Yoruba oral literature, the ijala poetry of hunters is both spiritual and historical record. In the Edo kingdom, the brass plaques of Benin told generational sagas through sculpture. In Northern Nigeria, the griot lineage continues to preserve memory through song.
To reclaim our stories is to reclaim our land, not just physical space, but cultural sovereignty.
This is the soil we stand on.
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IV. THE RISING GROUND
Across the continent, the tide is turning. A new generation of African artists, curators, and cultural workers is shifting the narrative from the inside out:
- In Accra, projects like ANO Institute are reimagining African archives by rooting them in community rather than colonial systems.
- In Nairobi, Nest Collective uses experimental film and fashion to explore queerness, Afrofuturism, and memory.
- In Johannesburg, Keleketla! Library blends literature, radio, and art into a political engine for local voices.
- In Benin City, through our work at Red Soil Collective, we are building platforms like CTRL+ALT+EDO, Cinema na Power, and our upcoming artist residencies to nurture storytellers from the ground up.
This is not a trend, this is a restoration.
V. WHAT WE BELIEVE
At Red Soil Collective, we do not seek validation,
We seek connection, creation, continuity.
We believe:
- That every artist is an archive
- That stories from Urhokpota Hall and Igun matter as much as stories from Manhattan
- That digital technology should amplify indigenous knowledge, not replace it
- That storytelling is not neutral, it is a site of politics, power, and possibility
- That if we don’t tell our stories, someone else will, and they will get it wrong
We believe in making art that remembers,
Art that resists,
Art that rebuilds.
VI. WHO TELLS OUR STORIES?
We do.
Not as a response, but as a right.
We tell our stories in languages that don’t always translate,
In rituals that don’t fit time slots,
In dreams that refuse to be colonized.
We tell them with cameras, with cloth, with dance, with silence, with rage.
We tell them in the red earth of home and the digital breath of the future.
We are not waiting for the world to listen,
We are building the world where our voices lead.
This is our soil,
This is our story,
And we are the ones telling it.
