Esther Mahlangu's Early Memories Documented with AI: Memory of Cooking

As part of the "The Pioneering Spirit of Esther Mahlangu" for Google Arts & Culture, the Google Arts & Culture Lab collaborated with Google DeepMind, Domestic Data Streamers, and curator Dr. Nontobeko Ntombela. Within this initiative, the team leveraged Google DeepMind's Veo video model and a "synthetic memories" approach to convert Mahlangu's oral stories into archival-style moving imagery, recreating visual history for her undocumented childhood (1940–1980).

This constructed image formed the basis of a memory that was recreated using this process for Mahlangu’s archive. This memory was inspired by the following quote by Mahlangu:

“I do not remember that but the layout was something close to this. Even the rubbish heap was exactly like this. Even where we cooked outside it was like this. When it rained we cooked inside.”