An Interactive Spatial Documentary

Oko Ayo: A Pilgrimage Through the Future of African Mining

Set in a speculative reclamation zone in southwestern Nigeria, Oko Ayo is an interactive VR documentary that immerses participants in a remediated mining landscape where the past and the future coexist. You walk a narrow path through a recovering ecology. Wind turbines turn above solar fields. A monument of hands holds a luminescent cobalt stone, memorializing the lives lost to extractive violence. Experts speak to you from within the terrain itself, their volumetric presences anchored to the land they help reimagine.

At the end of the path lies the Oko Ayo, a biomimetic hexapod mining device whose spider form draws on the Akan figure of Anansi, whose haptic telemetry transforms extraction into a somatic dialogue with the earth, and whose closed-loop mesh network ensures that the geological data generated remains the sovereign property of the community that lives above it.

Built through the Decolonial Foresight Method, a research methodology that translates African epistemologies and community foresight into actionable technological design, the work asks its audience to stop witnessing and start inhabiting a future that has not yet been built, but could be.

Technology: Unity HDRP, MetaQuest 3 VR Headset

Roles: Lead Researcher, Theorist, Creative Technologist, Spatial Designer, Immersive Documentary Director

Context: Necropolitics, Cobalt & the Transatlantic Chain

Artisanal cobalt and lithium mining in southwestern Nigeria operates under conditions Achille Mbembe would recognize as "necropolitical", zones where human life and ecological survival are subordinated to global capital. The financial architecture sustaining this extraction is headquartered not in Africa but in Toronto, the undisputed global hub of mining finance.

This Research-Creation thesis intervenes at that geographic intersection, asking what a genuinely decolonial technological alternative would look like if designed from within the systems it seeks to challenge.

Death-Worlds

Mbembe's framework: artisanal mining pits as zones where human life is violently subordinated to the sovereignty of resource extraction and global market demands.

The Real Vibranium

Cobalt powers every lithium-ion battery on earth. Nigeria holds some of Africa's largest reserves — an estimated 44 minerals valued at $700 billion.

The Transatlantic Chain

Toronto originates the capital. London prices the commodity on the LME. The Global South bears the body. The system is not centred in a single city — it is distributed.

700+

Mining deaths in Zamfara & Kebbi states, 2010–2016.

PAGMI, 2020

11–37%

Silicosis prevalence among artisanal small-scale miners

Hine et al., PLOS Global Public Health, 2023

15%

Tuberculosis prevalence across sub-Saharan ASM

Tchouatieu et al., medRxiv, 2023

Methodology

The Decolonial
Foresight Method

The DFM is a three-pillar methodology that combines Africanfuturism as epistemological grounding, Local Foresight as participatory strategy, and Material Translation as a variable output mechanism — whose form is determined by the community's context, not the researcher's discipline.

1. The Epistemology (Africanfuturism):

Cultural grounding in continental philosophy, cyclical time (Sasa/Zamani), and indigenous mythologies. Ensures technology is rooted in African epistemologies rather than Western techno-utopianism.

2. Local Foresight (The Strategy):

Community-authored futures through participatory expert consultation. Shifts authorship of future development to local stakeholders, converting cultural values into engineering specifications.

3. Material Translation (The Variable Output):

The output form — speculative design, policy, law, governance, curriculum — is determined by community context. In this iteration: a speculative VR prototype and biomimetic mining device.

Expert Consultation

• Tolu Olowofoyeku (The Body): Cultural Consultant, Disney+ Iwájú

Established the hexapod spider form factor via biomimicry, aligning the device with the Akan figure of Anansi. Insisted on repairability as decolonial aesthetics — exposed mechanics signal local governability.

• Patricia Mwenda (The Senses): Africanfuturist Designer & Wearables Specialist

Proposed haptic telemetry as somatic care — the operator feels geological resistance rather than dominating the earth. Removes the body from direct pit exposure, addressing silicosis prevalence rates of 11–37%.

• Yaw Sarkodie (The Brain): Foresight Practitioner & Business Strategist

Designed the closed-loop mesh network and LED colour-coded soil interface. Proposed the "Uber for Minerals" model: community-owned geodata as a revenue stream that exists even when miners aren't physically working.

Speculative Technology: Oko Ayo

FORM

Biomimetic Hexapod

Six articulating legs distribute weight across multiple contact points, treading lightly to preserve soil integrity. Spider form draws on the Akan figure of Anansi, the trickster, creator, and symbol of resistance against oppressive structures.

SENSES

Haptic Telemetry

The operator feels geological density through the device's controls. If the machine encounters fragile soil, a "resistance" signal fires in their hands, making mining as somatic dialogue rather than industrial domination.

DATA

Closed-Loop Mesh Network

Geological data remains the sovereign property of the local community. The data interface is on the exterior of the machine, not routed to a remote corporate server.

INTERFACE

LED Colour-Coded Soil Readout

Red (halt) / Yellow (caution) / Green (flourish) / Purple (leverage). No text literacy required. Legible to the community it is designed to serve.

The Experience: Interactive VR Documentary

This immersive spatial documentary is the first material translation of the Decolonial Foresight Method. It invites gallery visitors on a virtual pilgrimage through a reimagined, culturally sovereign future for artisanal mining in southwestern Nigeria. Operating at the intersection of volumetric journalism, speculative design, and biomimetic engineering, the exhibition transforms the gallery into a bridge between the physical reality of the global battery economy and the theoretical possibilities of decolonial technology.

The Physical Gallery Experience

Before entering the headset, the physical exhibition space democratizes the immersive experience. Through borderless spatial mirroring on external displays, bystanders can witness the participant's localized journey through the terrain. Simultaneously, an instant-loading WebAR companion application allows attendees to project a scaled, interactive 3D model of the Oko Ayo hexapod directly into the physical gallery using their smartphones, grounding the speculative hardware in real space.

The Virtual Pilgrimage

Upon donning the headset, the user steps into an aspirational, remediated landscape. The interactive terrain offers two diverging, non-linear routes. Both pathways integrate a newly engineered volumetric proximity system: stepping into a designated spatial zone triggers a specific holographic interview segment, while stepping out instantly halts playback. This grants the participant complete somatic control over the documentary’s pacing across two distinct thematic journeys: The Right Trajectory (Somatic Care & Hardware) & The Left Trajectory (Data Sovereignty & Systems).

The Convergence and the Hexapod

Both pathways converge at the environment's emotional core: a towering monument of dark-toned, photogrammetric hands elevating a massive cobalt stone. Acting as both a memorial to extractive violence and a symbol of indigenous ownership, this monument anchors the cyclical temporality of the experience. From here, users are guided down into the mining crater for the final encounter: discovering the Oko Ayo (Vessel of Joy). As users approach this biomimetic, spider-like robotic device, the spatial audio and visual interfaces synthesize insights from both pathways, revealing the exhibition's ultimate premise.

"The radical act of dreaming becomes a practical act of engineering."

- Peter Oke, 2026

Next Steps

In-Situ Co-Design

Workshops with active artisanal miners in Ogun and Oyo states. Women processors and traders are included as named participants, as holders of knowledge about the economic ecosystem into which the device will enter.

User Study at Exhibition

Structured observation across three audience categories: diaspora community members, policymakers, and global finance professionals. VR experience compared against a 2D cinematic export as a natural control condition.

Legal & Legislative Mapping

Engagement with Nigerian legal scholars on Sections 1 and 2 of the Minerals and Mining Act. OCAP-equivalent data trust framework to make the mesh network's data sovereignty legally enforceable.

Ecological Validation

Environmental scientist consultation on soil science, habitat recovery, and hexapod footprint in laterite terrain, the one domain no member of the current expert panel could validate.