Hello Uganda..

Recently I met an African art collector in my neighbourhood cafe. Rob Aussen is his name and of course we talked about Africa and how I came to the Netherlands. He then invited me to his studio where he had this collection of African art. He is a painter himself but passionate about African art.

Well I sort of knew what artifacts to expect; tribal masks, wooden sculptures and so on. But what I did not count on was the scale at which these things would be.
Rob has a collection that could fill up a quarter of a football field. He had been collecting for forty years from mainly West Africa and a little bit from other parts of Africa. But due to some bureaucratic issues, there was a restriction on the importation of “exotic” artifacts.

This came to my mind that West Africa for a very long time has over shadowed East Africa when it came to art. We heard of the biennale that was in Dakar, Senegal and other activities that were taking place in that part of Africa. And I started to think why this can not also happen for East Africa.
So I started contacting different Dutch art and cultural institutes in order to get them interested. My main focus being on Uganda because also in the region, Kenya and Tanzania for a long time have over shadowed Uganda in terms of tourism, art and also the fact that they are on the coast.

I contacted a few artists in Uganda and I got more encouraged to really promote these young contemporary artists. These people live under a lot of pressure, they do not have their art funded or get subsidised from the government like artists in the Netherlands but they keep on. They are passionate about what they do, so they inevitably make it happen. Some of them have even exhibited their works abroad and been all around the world like Rose Kirumira.

Denmark June 2000, installing the Sculpture piece Omulangira [the Prince] at Albourg. The art piece was made out of oak wood Photo courtesy of Rose Kirumira archives.

I remembered my days at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie where I always used good equipment for my films. The academy would let students borrow all sorts of electronics for their projects. If a student had a special request and they did not have it, it was possible for them to go outside the school premises to get it. This was such a luxury and joy for me because many times I got to use machinery I could not afford. So when I look at the young Ugandans who do not even have half of what people in the Netherlands have, my heart reaches out to them.
These artists need more exposure and appreciation than they are getting.

There are more residencies, art/ film festivals, art schools, exchange programs going on, more than I ever expected. Yet again Uganda is a country that catches up fast. I remember not even up to 10 years ago, there was no particular art scene compared to other African countries. People mainly made these artifacts for selling because tourists loved them. But now more and more artists are expressing themselves in their work.

Most of the Ugandan contemporary art remains particularly influenced by the historical and political forces that have shaped it. So many artists focus on the political, social and economic factors as the root of their work because this is what many people are going through but may not be able to express themselves.
Like Ronex Ahimbisibwe who is a visual artist in Kampala stated “I am inspired by the phrase ‘Gifted by Nature’ a theme the Ugandan government used in order to advertise the country to the world. I believe that Uganda is truly and naturally gifted but how we, as Ugandans, have exploited that blessing to our advantage is another issue. In the twenty first century we experience daily scenarios in Kampala that are not fit for the modern world and sadly such scenes are embedded in our way of life. My work is a way of expressing my frustrations and also a way of creating awareness of these issues that to most, sadly, remain in the subconscious.”

On Kampala streets series by Ronex Ahimbisibwe

                                         
Ugandans are finding different ways of improving or detaching themselves from the traditional methods of visual interpretation.
For instance David Kibuuka who is one of the founders of modern batik painting where he introduced “Fragmentation” technique to traditional Batik Art. This modification improved the quality of the traditional Batik because it increased background depth, broadness and a richer palette of colors, allowing this novel fine art medium to yield control, detail and richness comparable to acrylic and water-color painting.

Water carrier by David Kibuuka

                                                       
Pamela Acaye a multimedia artist who runs the Women Rising Theatre and Arts Project in Kampala’s Kireka slum is also a performance artist who writes poetry that is performed in musicals at the National Theatre in Kampala.
“While doing development and social work in Kampala, I saw first hand the difficult lives of internally displaced women in Namuwongo and Acholi quarters in Kireka. I have thus embarked  on combining my passion for social activism  through theater with design, fashion and art.”

Inside the workshop

Outside the workshop

Via Acaye Designs, Pamela worked with women on quality enhancement workshops for their bead work, tailoring and craft making skills so that they could become self-sufficient.

In the next few years to come, the art scene in tiny Uganda will be sky rocketing. As a Ugandan artist in Amsterdam I was surprised at my findings. The art scene is extensively going on and more and more people are getting involved. I am and will always be an advocate for the uplifting of a society that raised me.