Urban Futures from the Global South
16:15 - 16:45
La Centrale, Nuvola Lavazza
The leading scholar in Digital Humanities imagins a utopia where new perspectives replaces official history.
Imagine Lagos is a groundbreaking research and storytelling project that brings 19th-century Lagos to life through digital cartography, archival work, and historical imagination. Based on the 2024 book by Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi, the project maps the layered, complex history of a city caught between worlds: Eko and colonial Lagos, land and lagoon, freedom and slavery, past and present. It invites readers and viewers to see Lagos not as a static entity, but as a dynamic site of cultural encounter and urban transformation.
Using interactive maps, geospatial data, and historical narratives, Imagine Lagos charts the everyday lives of people whose voices are often missing from the archive, especially women, the formerly enslaved, and indigenous communities. The project reframes the city’s colonial past not through the lens of empire, but through local agency, movement, and resistance.
Available online at imaginelagos.com, the platform serves as both a digital museum and a tool for reimagining African urban history on its own terms. Imagine Lagos is not just about what the city was, but what it might still become.
Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi is a Nigerian-American historian and computer engineer whose work explores the intersections of African urban history, mapping, and digital humanities. She is Associate Professor of History at Howard University and author of Imagine Lagos. Her research has been featured in academic journals, exhibitions, and documentaries, including Netflix’s Journey of an African Colony.
