HISTORY AS A FRAMEWORK FOR IMAGINATION

When most people think of history, they imagine dusty dates and distant rulers removed from the world of creative imagination. Yet history at its best is not a static catalogue but a living framework that animates stories, gives shape to beliefs and helps us understand why societies were organised the way they were. This is especially true in Africa, where history has survived not just in written texts but in the very way people remember, perform and narrate their past. Long before archives and printed books, African societies preserved memory through performance and oral tradition. The West African griot, for instance, was not merely a storyteller but a guardian of genealogies, events, customs and moral lessons. Griots memorised and passed on histories through song, poetry and performance, shaping communal identity and linking generations in a living narrative that was both artistic and historical. This method offers a powerful template for creative work today, because it shows us that history is not something separate from life but deeply woven into culture and meaning. In much of Africa history was not confined to academies, it was embedded in songs sung at festivals, in epics recited by elders under open skies and in rituals that tied people to their ancestors and landscapes. These traditions made history vivid and participatory. They remind us that the past is not merely a set of facts but a network of relationships, values and shared experiences. When animators and writers use history as a framework rather than a genre, they tap into this richness and allow imaginary worlds to resonate with depth and authenticity. 

Academic thinking about history too recognises that the creative imagination is already part of the historian’s craft. Modern historians increasingly engage with what some scholars call “undisciplined history,” where imaginative methodologies co-exist with rigorous research. In this view, history is not just the documentation of events but the careful bringing together of fragments, voices and interpretations to create a compelling narrative that speaks to contemporary understanding as well as to the past itself.  This perspective parallels what artists and storytellers have always known: that to tell a story about human experience, whether real or imagined, is to use the past not as a constraint but as a scaffolding on which to build worlds that make sense to audiences. In African contexts, this interplay of memory, myth and lived experience has always been dynamic. Historical knowledge was preserved alongside cosmology, ethics and communal values. For example, stories about ancestors and heroes were not only accounts of what happened but also moral and philosophical frameworks that guided behaviour and shaped communal identity. These tales were performative acts of remembering and in doing so, acted as living narratives that taught, questioned and inspired.  When creators today turn to history as a framework, they inherit this tradition: they use narratives not simply to recount events but to explore what it means to be human, to belong, to struggle and to imagine alternative futures. This approach also challenges reductive narratives that have too often flattened African histories into stereotypes of passivity or marginality. Scholars and cultural thinkers such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o have long argued that history and language carry the identity of a people, and that reclaiming narrative agency is essential to cultural dignity. Ngũgĩ’s work emphasises that indigenous forms of storytelling are not lesser or primitive, they are complex systems of memory and meaning that deserve respect and serious engagement. By taking history as an active framework, creative practitioners honour this legacy while imagining new worlds that draw from deep wells of human experience.

In animation and narrative creation, adopting history as a framework for imagination means that every invented city, every belief system and every cultural code is rooted in a logic that feels lived in. It means that worlds are not just visually striking but emotionally and intellectually coherent. History offers texture and context, relationships and power dynamics, systems of value and modes of transformation. When creators engage with history in this way, they do not limit themselves to the literal past, instead, they use the past’s frameworks to imagine futures that are vibrant, resonant and true to the complexity of human life. At Nsibidi Fables we believe that history offers more than inspiration. It provides the blueprints for worlds worth exploring, characters worth knowing and stories worth telling. By weaving history into imagination, we honour both the past and the possibilities of the future.