Makoko 2035: An Encyclopedia Main Menu All Entries Here you find an alphabetical list of all the entries to the Makoko 2035 Encyclopedia. Sustain A list of the encyclopedia entries related to sustainability in Makoko 2035. Make A list of the encylopedia entries related to the maker movement in Makoko 2035. Play A list of the encylopedia entries related to play in Makoko 2035. Educate A list of the encyclopedia entries related to education in Makoko 2035. Connect A list of the encyclopedia entries related to connection in Makoko 2035. Resist A list of the encylopedia entries related to the resistance of Lagos in Makoko 2035. World Building Media Lab

Michael Mwonaji

8732
Michael Mwonaji is a graphic novelist living in Makoko, most famous for his afrofuturist photo-comics.

Mwonaji was born in Makoko in 2012 to Ganiyu Mwonaji, a fisherman, and Bekeme Mwonaji, a teacher. He grew up reading digital comics on mobile phones, eventually becoming deeply impressed by the Lagosian graphic novelist Roye Okupe. It was an interview with Okupe that first introduced Mwonaji to the adventures of Lance Spearman, a weekly photo-comic that ran in Africa from 1968 to 1972. Mwonaji adopted this style as his own, producing his own photo-comics using a phone and a stylus beginning in 2030.

Mwonaji's afrofuturist photo-comics have attracted fans around the world. These fans include Nada Achebe, a grad student from the University of Lagos working on combining technology, biology and architecture to envision homes grown from a giant grafted-mix of mangroves and kudzu. Their conversations have deeply influenced Michael's storyworld, a future Makoko that is grown more than scavenged or built, a city that has literally put down roots, speaking to a Makokoan fantasy that they can put down roots themselves, stop fearing eviction or needing to continuously move.

Mwonaji's work generates money from his global fans due to a worldwide boom of interest in afrofuturism (part of the larger entrepreneurial trend of 2030s Makoko), but he chooses to stay in Makoko because that's where his family and friends are. Still, he lives in a micro-houseboat in a nicer part of Makoko, close to the border between Makoko and Lagos. This enables him to sneak easily onto the mainland to access the larger Internet outside the government's jamming shell, accessing his bank accounts, connecting with his fans and peers, and buying art supplies he can't get in Makoko for himself and the students in his comics-making class at one of the Makoko makerspaces. 

His existence at the intersections between present and future in his art, between the educated class and culture with Nada Achebe and the University and the low class of Makoko with his parents and friends, and between his art that tells Makokoans there is a better future they can start to build now but it is still under the boot of the upper class and government unless they stand up for themselves now, and a government that wants to quash such notions – all of these tensions are the stories in Michael's life. 

This page has paths:

  1. Bioarchitecture Geoffrey Long
  2. All Entries Laura Cechanowicz

Contents of this path:

  1. Afrofuturism
  2. Nada Achebe
  3. Entrepreneurship
  4. Hacker Spaces + Maker Movement
  5. The Internet and Web 3.0
  6. Floating Architecture

This page has tags:

  1. Educate Laura Cechanowicz
  2. Connect Laura Cechanowicz