Written by Farida N. Bagalaaliwo

Throughout the talk the audience was able to discover what this meant. The evening started with Xenson talking about his life and work and ended with a viewing of two of his short films, Kakoko and Creation Lab, followed by an interesting Q&A-session.

This Wazo talk was different; it was less of a discussion or paper presentation, it was instead a journey — and at times a fairly intimate journey into the landscape of the artist Xenson. David Kaiza was not so much moderator as he was a guide, leading Xenson to a particular point and inviting the artist to open up that space to the audience.

Xenson talking at Wazo, Kampala 2013.

What’s in a name

The journey began with the question of name or what the moderator, insightfully, referred to as the artist’s “nom de guerre”. Xenson described his name as coming from the idea of the X factor, that is, trying to find the X factor in whatever work one does.

The name also drew on the idea of “Zen” inspired by the concept of harmony, even influenced by his mother’s vegetarianism; of trying to find the balance in the natural world. In Xenson’s view art is an attempt to create balance in the world.

The “zen” idea is further connected to the Zenji Empire and to Zinjanthropus. Zinja, he told us, was part of his nomenclature inspired by the idea of the Zinjanthropus as the first storyteller and a “man” whose survival probably required a multiplicity of skills.

The name is a philosophy and a concept, and it embodies the varieties of this artist’s frame of reference and his curiousness about the world he inhabits. The themes that kept recurring throughout the evening were: multiplicity, balance, an exploration of our many selves and the many ways we experience our lives and communities, and finally looking to the origins and essence of things to find meaning.

Xenson. Photo by Stuart Williams, with courtesy of KLA ART 012.

In answering a question on why he does so many different things, Xenson drew his explanation from the perspective of maintaining a child’s willingness to try a variety of things without the sense of restriction that comes with adulthood. This perspective is anchored by a refusal by the artist to accept the boundaries of career, education, expectation etc. that are set upon us in adulthood.

Soul searching

One of the most interesting and in many ways moving parts of the evening was when Xenson spoke about how he came to be an artist.

He spoke of his interest in art as a student at Kibuli Secondary School and of how somewhere along the way he forgot about his love of art, only to be later reminded of this passion by a former schoolmate when he was in Senior Five. He recollected the sense of shock at realizing how he had forgotten this aspect of himself and the process of soul-searching that took him to the Director of Studies office to ask to adjust his science “A” level course to include art. He recounted the struggle with the administration to make this change and the worry about what his mother would say, but he knew (beyond any doubt) that he needed to make a return to art.

The struggle continued to Makerere University, where after one year he gave up his civil engineering course to join the art department, eliciting shock and personal disappointment from his Tanzanian professor who tried to dissuade him from the perceived folly of turning from engineering to art. While it was more difficult to change course at university, he eventually managed to do so with the considerable support of an art lecturer called Mr. Kyeyune. This gentleman took Xenson under his wing and nurtured him and his eventual transition to the art department.

Although this change was clearly pivotal, Xenson described art school as boring. While that particular experience of art school was not unique to him, it intimated the restlessness of spirit that perhaps propels him to keep finding new avenues to explore the world through his art.

One of the criticisms he expressed of the art in Uganda is that it is all so “external”. As he described it, people are creating art with both eyes open, that is, they are focused on the external rather than the internal.

This observation stemmed from a discussion of his logo, which depicts one closed eye and one open eye. This, he said, reflected his philosophy as a person and as an artist of looking both outward and inward. He asserted that art is about drawing truths from within and recreating those truths outside. And this also spoke to his philosophy of balance, which threaded the evening’s discussions.

Xenson was encouraged by Mr. Kaiza to speak of the concepts and ideas that inspired one of the pieces in his 2012 fashion show called “Futuristic Past”, a piece in which three models wore one dress made of reeds.

The concept, Xenson said, was inspired by the idea of female friendship, where women share clothes and yet have marked struggles in their relationships with each other. From this grew the question, “if people can share dresses why can’t they wear one dress?” ­— hence the models in one dress.

The dress then became a metaphor for Africa, the concept of our continental aspirations and struggles experienced both as unity and as bondage. The reeds in the dress symbolized the idea of the fence that protects a village or homestead uniting people and yet at the same time encaging those who might want to leave. The audience was intrigued by these illuminations on this particular work and the philosophy behind the show itself.

Design by Xenson (c) 2011. Photo by Thomas Bjørnskau, startjournal.

The artist as storyteller

David Kaiza at the beginning of the talk described Xenson’s work as surprising, in the best sense, and as we listened to Xenson and watched the two short films, this aspect of not just the art but the artist himself was self-evident.

At one point in the evening Xenson reflected on how our society limits the questions we can ask, the implication being that the fear of asking questions has a correlating impact on the art that is produced.

Why, he responded to an audience member, ask only about the influence of Christianity on my work and not the influence of the Ugandan history that preceded Christianity?

Indicative of the relaxed and revealing nature of the evening he joked that if he questioned the existence of God there might be a riot in his family, and then mused that many artists were probably non-believers because they considered themselves “creators” in their own right. This last remark, innocuously stated, elicited some nervous laughter from the audience and though they did not respond to it, I’m sure some of those present recognized the questions that it asked of them.

There was a sense of privilege and intimacy as the audience listened to Xenson. The artist as storyteller, resisting definition yet interested in reconstructing his experience and sharing it with the community present at The Hub, in Kamwokya, that April evening. At some points he would retreat and say he could not explain everything, it would be too complicated and even impossible, and the audience understood and respected his retreat.

It was, however, patently clear that it had become important for Xenson not just to tell his story but also to share it with us. This point was emphasized when he spoke of how valuable it was to have been interviewed by David Kaiza in 2003 before the opening of one of his art shows. He spoke of how important it is for the consumers and critics of the arts to look beyond the surface of things, and how valuable that is, not just for the society, but for the artists as well.

He expressed frustration at how our consumption and experience of art still painfully resides on the surface, and that the media propagates this insubstantial regard for the arts through its own tepid commentary on the arts and arts industry in Uganda.

And he spoke of how Chameleon’s music is loved but so few know what inspires him, why he sings the songs he does or why he sings them the way he does.

Front cover of Xenson’s latest album ‘VILLANGUAGE’, released 2013.

The coming together

Listening to Xenson speak about his work and his life, it became clear how important it is for us to hear the artist’s story. By sharing (if not baring) his soul, we begun to glean a little understanding of the man behind the art and as a result gained a deeper appreciation of his work and the contexts in which that art is created and its relationship to us.

How often does the consuming public get to interact and listen to an artist tell his/her story in Uganda? Indeed how often do we hear the artist’s story anywhere in Uganda? These questions are just as important as the questions about critical assessment of art in Uganda and the quality of the work being produced.

Reflecting on the small gathering at Wazo 10 that April night brought to my mind a passage from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart:

“A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”

The evening ended with Xenson as poet, and he treated the audience to a recital of performance poetry in English and Luganda. It was delivered with verve and confidence that the audience truly appreciated. And fittingly it was about the affirmation of the artist’s self and the insistence on being allowed to define one’s experience, to tell one’s truth and the story of one’s home.

Farida N. Bagalaaliwo is a freelance writer living in Kampala, Uganda.

Images from WAZO Talking Arts provided by courtesy of WAZO.

Exhibitions in Uganda are generally designed to evoke a positive response from the viewer. Art galleries, cultural institutions and public art shows, all serve as reflections of the nation’s diverse beauty. Indeed the goal of a prolific artist, in this locale, is to sell their work, and consumers typically purchase pieces that they ‘like’. This art-for-sale relationship has been termed by Dominic Muwanguzi as the ‘survival syndrome’. 

On rare occasions in Uganda, an artist dares to challenge familiar representations of beauty. But, what happens when we display tragic, often horrific, experiences?  What happens when human interpretation cannot be purchased? How does a curator work with artists and researchers to display the ugly side of the nation’s history? This article seeks to examine — from a curatorial point of view — the key issues that arise when we use exhibitions as spaces to expose an often forgotten war.

Mural with graffiti of child soldier. Photo by Kara Blackmore.

In recent months, Kampala and Kitgum have hosted different exhibitions that focus on the civil conflict between the national government and Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army.  In Kampala, the Uganda Museum showcased site-based work that they have been developing at Aboke, Barlonyo, Lukodi, and Pabbo. In Kitgum, the Refugee Law Project (at the National Memory and Peace Documentation Centre) used samples from their vast collection to communicate the past and present realities of people who experienced the war. Both are representative of larger projects, and both shows opened with an audience of community members and distinguished international visitors. The Road to Reconciliation and Images of War and Peacemaking, respectively, reveal facets of the war that are unsettling for the viewer.

As curator of the Kitgum exhibit, I worked with a team to construct a delicate balance between the subject matter and the public viewer.  With such a dissonant subject to cover, it was important that we:

1. Respected the people who experienced the war
2. Represented the history and current realities in an authentic way
3. Reflected the strength of the collection

Community Driven Narratives

To do this effectively, I have developed a technique called “community driven narratives”.  It is a process whereby community members articulate the essential parts of a story. Then, it is our job to devise creative ways of displaying individual and collective memories. Ideally this is done over a series of workshops, interviews and focus groups.

In the absence of anthropological fieldwork that usually serves for the basis of community driven narratives, our curatorial approach employed core researchers of the Refugee Law Project to guide the narrative construction. Their collections and predetermined narrative themes were combined to accommodate the audience.

What made this process particularly difficult was defining a narrative that could be understood by people across a vast spectrum, meaning multiple audiences. On one side are the people who know nothing of the war, on the other are people who would identify as “war-affected”.  We agreed unanimously that the war-affected community was our primary audience.

What kinds of materials should one use to depict over two decades of war and current efforts for peace? This curator says: Use what you have and collect what you need. Museum exhibitions entice their visitors because of their collections; sometimes this is an abundance of objects, other times it is a single rare item. RLP’s collection of newspaper articles, photographs, film archives and objects, craft an abundant physical and digital store. It is important to note that each core researcher within the organization has a particular area of focus and a medium that they collect.

Refugee Law Project’s Collection

One of the first and most precious components of their collection is Chris Dolan’s personal photographs from his fieldwork conducted in late 1990s. Collections donated by community members show: household objects used in acts of violence; personal effects belonging to those who were abducted; Acholi items used in the revival of cultural traditions, including reconciliation. Researcher Deo Komakech’s photographs of massacre sites transitions the narrative from war experiences to healing processes. Woven through the themes of War, Peace and Healing are newspaper articles that offer a printed multiplicity of voices through headlines, text and cartoon images.

To ensure this kind of story resonates with the intended audience it must be personal. We wanted the people who donated the objects to recognize their story. One way we did this was with quotes to tie together the threads of each theme. We also invite the viewer to touch the objects and photographs — turn them over, and read the text on the back. Ultimately, this exhibition is a gathering of testimonies, a space where the people affected by the conflict have a voice.

Memorial displays often leave people feeling emotional, and as the curator one needs to be careful not to incite conflict. To do this effectively — keeping in mind the primary audience is the local community — we fostered a conversation that avoided an explicit dissection of victim versus perpetrator.

Inputs and Reactions

At the end of the show, when the viewer is feeling their most exposed, we decided to follow a curatorial trend which invites people to interact with the subject matter. Just as the combatants had written letters to local chiefs requesting peace, the exhibition has a letterbox and chalkboard for people to express resonating thoughts and concerns.

The final pillar of success for Images of War and Peacemaking was to involve artists. In this case, young graffiti artists tagged the slab outside the building. On the final day they even invited youngsters, walking home from school, to get involved; one of whom etched on the wall a clay pot with limbs boiling out of it. Unbeknownst to the prepubescent boy, the NMPDC has been donated dozens of these pots as symbols of the conflict.

Further to this, the opening evening set the stage for dance and music. A traditional Acholi women’s group to danced alongside breakdancers; between them the wall and its fresh mural.

The reactions to the opening are fresh and hard-hitting. On the chalkboard people pledge messages to peace and one states that the exhibition is a “perfect reminder of the past”.

It seems that Uganda is ready, at least in Kitgum, to visualize their war-torn past, but it must be coupled with their peaceful efforts to rebuild. To curate one without the other would be a disservice to the experience.  We must remember, that if we are tasked to display that which many might not want to see, we must be prepared to engage personal perspectives.

Kara Blackmore is a Kampala-based anthropologist and museum curator.

Written by Serubiri Moses

When Kenyan musician Winyo was introduced onto stage on Wednesday night by Faisal Kiwewa at the BAX Conference Center, Sue Anique and I had been discussing our experience of DOA DOA.

Bayimba Director Faisal Kiwewa dancing to Winyo.

I had confessed that I thought it was a jungle (of talent and opportunity) so that it was hard to cut your way through. She replied that she felt like that last year because she turned up completely unprepared. When I asked her what had changed from then to now, she replied that she had been to boot camp and had become a professional musician.

Sue Anique is a singer and session musician based in Kampala. The first time I heard her was at Cayenne last year in a performance of her now famous Making Luwombo — a jazz song-poem about preparing steamed plantain in smoked banana leaves.

Even though she has quite an underground following, her beginnings were not as promising. Her parents were disappointed in her affinity for languages and music in high school. After working as a PR agent for the government, she quit her job and decided to follow her dream of making music.

“All I wanted to do was sing whenever an opportunity came along,” Sue said, but quickly added that this changed after attending DOA DOA in 2011. She established a managing company for her music, which meant that she had an infrastructure to monitor and ensure payment for her product. This year, she brought along her press kit and CD in a handmade craft item which pleased many of the arts and festival managers.

One particular speaker, Andrew Dabber, even pointed her out to the rest of the participants as having ”done something right”.

Originality first

This sense of doing something right is how I felt within a few minutes of Winyo’s stage performance. He sang in a light falsetto, giving himself time to explore a note while drawing it out. The performance did not feel rushed, and soon everyone warmed up to it by proceeding to the front of the stage to dance.

Here was a musician who came to DOA DOA not to gamble; he came extremely well prepared for the ”jungle”.

Kenyan artist Winyo performing at Doa Doa 2013.

Looking at the pictures from his show, I can see that Winyo had the proper foundation and support for his music in addition to talent. In an interview the morning after the show, he expressed that East African musicians must become original and not shy away from their culture.

This sounded like he was reprimanding the current crop of music stars in Uganda and Kenya, but as a personal philosophy it echoed the views of Tabu Osusa, the founder of Ketebul Music, the Kenyan record label to which Winyo is signed. Their mission statement is to “identify, preserve, conserve and promote the diverse music traditions of East Africa”.

Winyo, real name Shiphton Onyango belongs to the Luo of Kenya who have a close ethnic relation to the Jopadhola and the Teso of Uganda. He comes from Western Kenya — a region which has been partly ignored by the political-economic infrastructure of postcolonial Kenya, and which reason created the tribal tension that erupted into the events of 2009. In a post-conflict Kenya, the guitarist and singer could be taken in the wrong vein by the strong use of his language, culture and heritage.

Kenyan artist Winyo performing at Doa Doa 2013.

An Itesot friend who attended DOA DOA, Peter, easily interpreted all the Luo lyrics the musician sang, and this allowed me to draw parallels between him as a musician and Winyo.

I had met Peter at the open mic night organized by Isobell Marshall of Sound Foundation UK in late 2011. I remember him because of his nonconformist style of guitar-playing which echoed that of Winyo which was equally unrelenting in its infusing of culture.

This was ultimately the jungle of DOA DOA: placing professional musicians with model infrastructure next to the amateurish but talented ones, many of whom have never made money off their music. This seemed to create some positive energy in the arts development workshops that took place at the Crested Crane Hotel.

Practice for consistency

I was sitting in the drawing-room, and outside the massive window was a picturesque landscape of manicured lawns vignetted by flowering shrubs, and in its center a dominating tree under which a British harmonica player collaborated with a Soga fiddle player yesterday.

It looked like a painting.

Ordinarily this lawn would be large enough to play cricket, as other open fields scattered around Jinja, but this one had been shortened for security and surveillance purposes. The hot sun had come out after a rainy evening last night made the grass so alluring.

This afternoon a filming was going on; Rosette Nteyafas, an arts manager at Bayimba, and a few others huddled around the little garden tables and chairs while other participants simply sat on the grass.

Will Ramsay at Doa Doa 2013.

But a tenor sax played in one of the rooms, filling the hallway with its wide and deep sound. It sounded like a cello. I found out later that the horn belonged to Will Ramsay, who gave a talk during the week. I also found out that his mantra as a musician was practice for consistency.

Even though Will Ramsay, a 50-something man with an Afrikaans accent, was not especially at the performing arts market to get his stuff noticed, it was. He had only been invited to give a talk on the Global Music Academy, a summer school built to produce indigenous African music study materials from different African regions that both Kaz Kasozi and Winyo had taken part in. And though his talk was memorable, everyone would immediately recognize the sound of his tenor sax blasting through the corridors.

When I asked him about his tenor sound, he mentioned that it is quite difficult to play the instrument for 3 hours constantly without losing one’s momentum. It was this sense of preparation that would make the jazz musician appear to everyone as a professional.

Startjournal’s very own Serubiri Moses at Doa Doa 2013.

Small music infrastructure

The colonial hotel provided a utopian space in which many brains were opened to new ideas of ’starting festivals’, ’creating small music infrastructures’ and ’appreciating different kinds of music’.

The talk on starting music infrastructures emphasized the new-born Bayimba Co-Op, which was started after a talk last year (and repeated this year) that was given by the Un-Convention team from the UK.

(Un-Convention is a group of musicians who started their organization by creating these informal conferences in which they could air out their frustrations on the music industry.)

Those talks then led to what is being called “small music infrastructures”. This move to create other avenues for musicians to sell and market music was an effort to decentralize the monopoly that big labels had in London.

For the purpose of clarity on the subject of Uganda’s music industry, especially in terms of how the media has been utilized by music promoters, I will focus on the exuberant talk on ”Effective Marketing” given by online researcher, consultant and blogger, Andrew Dabber, who gave a researcher’s view of the inner workings of radio advertising.

Andrew Dabber presenting Effective Marketing at Doa Doa 2013.

Dabber’s notorious example revolved around his native country of New Zealand, where at one point it was common for people to say, ”They play really good for a New Zealand band.” A phrase which deemed music from other countries better than music from the home country.

The blogger reasoned that this was mainly because of how people related to the music played on the radio, a problem which started at the very beginning of radio broadcasting when, according to Evan Kindley in n+1, radio stations “needed content to fill time and keep people listening and capital to keep themselves afloat”.

Radio, therefore, became the hub that fostered a strategic relationship between advertisers and musicians.

Airplay economy

In Kampala, this same relationship has been noted in the format of the ‘Album Launch’ — an event that receives enormous backing from corporate brands. It is also noted that many musicians have been asked to incorporate brand slogans in their lyrics.

Singer José Chameleon released his single Moto Moto in the later months of 2011, a song which bore references to cars. In early 2012, Pepsi’s Mirinda brand decided to use both the song and Chameleon’s image in an elaborate soft beverages campaign that would last a few months. Its overall theme was ”Win a Car with Mirinda”.

It is quite hard to tell (even though many suspect) that the song was written with prior knowledge to the campaign, and therefore the singer made alterations based on the advertising campaign. This is just one example as there are countless others.

The blogger noted that all it took for such a biased opinion on music from New Zealand to change was when a government campaign to ”play more New Zealand music than foreign music” was launched on the radio. Overnight, the number of listeners of New Zealand bands soared, especially as they were being played next to the titans of foreign music, which meant that listeners could associate them with top acts from abroad.

Andrew Dabber gave the participants one of the methods used in advertising which he eyewitnessed during his days on radio. The theory was revolved around two properties: frequency and quantity.

Frequency would represent the number of times a song was played on the radio, whereas quantity the number of listeners tuning in at the time at which the song was played.

The blogger realized that the two properties equally high-ranking meant for immense financial turn over for corporate brands. This meant that any agreements between musicians and corporate brands highly favored the latter.

Andrew Dabber presenting Effective Marketing at Doa Doa 2013.

In the case of the New Zealand bands, the music campaign invariably took on a government infrastructure to support local bands in the country. But as in the case of Chameleon, ‘Moto Moto’ is patronized by Mirinda and other associated free market corporate infrastructures that favour their product sales more than the artist’s sales.

In fact, this relationship is so extreme that it is rumored that Mirinda owns full copyright to the song ‘Moto Moto’.

The power of networks

The solution was in what was called the ”co-op”. If musicians would network with each other and lay grounds for structures that allowed for distribution, as well as events and marketing, that would grow the music tremendously.

Networking the Bayimba CO-OP way.

Sue Anique had started a music business model of her own, but was since the only musician signed or benefitting. The only way, Dabber said, people would recognize Ugandan music to be worth listening to, was if people like Sue invited more artists to join her, and in effect building a stronger and more sustainable business. The more structures identical to Sue’s will emerge, the higher the growth for the entire music industry.

To emphasize his point, the blogger asked every musician in the room to go outside for a group portrait in the picturesque lawn. That would be evidence of the hope that this group of musicians could move towards, building an alternative music economy run by themselves.

Serubiri Moses has been published in The New Vision reviewing live music. As a poet, he is featured on the pan African website, Badilisha Poetry Exchange.

All photos by Bwette Daniel Gilbert.

Written by Elizabeth Namakula

The entry fee remained at a steady Shs 1,000, still it didn’t guarantee a decent crowd although more people kept coming as it got darker. Though scheduled to start at midday, the festival kicked off well past 4pm, maybe putting off some would-be goers.

The majority of the festival’s lineup was local acts from the Busoga region, perhaps as expected, although throwing in acclaimed folk and world acts like Joel Sebunjo wouldn’t have hurt to liven up the performances.

Cultural troupes and hip-hop

The first act was the Agali Awamu Troupe, who in their uniform of purple and white shirts and black pants performed a string of Busoga instrumentation involving drums, endingidi and xylophones, littered with dances here and there.

The Agali Awamu Troupe at Bayimba Regional Festival in Jinja 2013. Photo by Gilbert Bwette Daniel.

Next up was the Budondo Troupe whose performance was almost the same as their predecessor and could pass for a soundcheck. (This is because when I asked a reveller if the performances had started, he merely glanced and said they were still doing soundcheck.)

He wasn’t impressed even when a folk song was performed in which the singer bemoaned the woes of having a stony woman and the excited dances of pre-teen girls who left the stage and stomped the audience with vigor and rhythm.

The Budondo Troupe at Bayimba Regional Festival in Jinja 2013. Photo by Gilbert Bwette Daniel.

It was brotherhood and the street dance force that redeemed the pace of the festival with entitled dance moves such as baby freeze, air chair, six step and head spin. They garnered the first handclaps of the evening from the audience. Their dance tracks included everything from Michael Jackson, back to the 70s music, and an intro to the Watoto children’s choir famed song Wipolo. They captivated the audience in their white sleeves and army green pants.

B-boys at Bayimba Regional Festival in Jinja 2013. Photo by Gilbert Bwette Daniel.

The next unforgettable performance came from Sabar Percussion who managed to do hip hop on xylophones and drums. The Hip-Hop Set comprising Jungle de Maneater, Reco MC, Ram MC and Chimey, rapped vigorously Omusaayi Gwa Busoga, Bamukikicha-Kikicha, accompanied by drums being played ecstatically, endingidi and pronounced all the more “Long live the Kyabazinga!” (the king of Busoga).

‘We are in Jinja man! Big up to Rasta Bombclat’ announced Ram Emcee as he unleashed, Hear these drums!

The Hip-Hop Set at Bayimba Regional Festival in Jinja 2013. Photo by Gilbert Bwette Daniel.

Siraje and his traditional orchestra followed. The entire troupe was clad in Kanzus and Kikoye. There was at first a pause, an almost prolonged silence as though the sound technician had some more work to do.

They seemed to get past it however and plunged directly into Busoga folk tore. Siraje and his orchestra have been a constant act for most Bayimba festivals and Siraje’s winning trademark in most of his folk performances is his grip of the audience with his art of storytelling. It is also true that he has sung for most Ugandan presidents.

His Kadongo kamu style accompanied by drums and the xylophone was quite enchanting as he advised and instructed in most of his songs. He is an artist to always watch out for because he is always aiming for a fresh sound.

Siraje performing at Bayimba Regional Festival in Jinja 2013. Photo by Gilbert Bwette Daniel.

More male folk performances followed only to broken up by a rare woman vocalist in a blue gomesi accompanied by a male who added drama to the music and left the audience in unbroken spells of ululations! Later they were identified as coming from Malagala, another culture troupe.

Another cultural troupe from Malagala performing at Bayimba Regional Festival in Jinja 2013. Photo by Gilbert Bwette Daniel.

Raw ya Simba and Professor Sensuwa provided more authentic Uganda sounds till midnight.

That Festival feeling

The food vendors were at their post as usual but there was an awful lack of Chama choma, sausages and roasted chicken. Nevertheless other foods were available.

As it got darker, they lit candles, creating a softer atmosphere with their scattered light across the stadium. The beer section took long to get busy and you could say that was the story for most of the evening.  There were also exhibiting stalls. Femrite was there with books on sale, there were art and crafts, Graffiti sprayed attires among others.

Doa Doa, Bayimba’s arts market place for East Africa, had been ongoing for a week and explained its concept to some of the people present at the festival.

Sybil Mani Akello came all the way from Lira, and despite a great time spent at Doa Doa, she was dismayed at the festival, “It was my first time, I came at around midday to the grounds but found nothing happening. So I have not been as excited as I thought I should be!”

But there were other people who liked it. Klaus from Germany said that even though the turnout was low, he was happy he had come, “It was a good place to spend time with friends and network.”

Elvis Mani from Agali Awamu Cultural Troupe remarked after the group’s performance, “I am glad we came, hopefully there will be a next time.”

Another group of excited revellers couldn’t help but voice this opinion, “I wish this festival had been ongoing for a week, it would have been much better that way!”

But Philip Masembe, the Bayimba media coordinator, could only respond, “Regional festivals are a one day event. That is how it has always been.”

Siraje performing at Bayimba Regional Festival in Jinja 2013. Photo by Gilbert Bwette Daniel.

Conclusions

There was that general feeling that the Bayimba Festival in Jinja had not been advertised enough, hence the slow attendance of people. Festivals are supposed to give you that sense of excitement and belonging. It’s hard to get that with a scanty number of people.

That aside, the sound of music of its own is bound to bring you numbers since the event was in a public space and considering that shs 1000 is not a lot to pay. On this occasion, there was something missing in the music acts that performed. This festival needed at least one or two big names that are certain crowd-pullers to uplift the mood of the festival. And also, to involve the local primary and secondary school performances would not have hurt.

However, judging this festival without comparison to its predecessors, one can say it was a right step in the right direction. Bayimba Cultural Foundation with its mission to uplift arts and culture organizes these annual festivals for the visual and performing arts across towns in Uganda. The objective is to provide a platform where artistic talents from different regions of Uganda can express itself on a national level, all leading to the development of the local art scene.

With more regional festivals still scheduled for this year in Gulu, Mbarara and Mbale, hopefully Jinja will provide some insightful lessons!

Elizabeth Namakula is a freelance writer living in Kampala, Uganda. Her short story “A World of Our Own” was recently published in the Femrite-collection “World of Our Own”.

All photos by Bwette Daniel Gilbert.

This text is also a call to all artists out there, no matter the artistic area, to get together and start sharing ideas, discussing projects and team up.

Written by Robin Färdig

I could start this article almost anywhere, but I choose to start in Mbale, the place where I as a nineteen year old development student at a major European university, decided to start film making. This was in 1999 and there were only mere bicycle bodabodas and only one internet connected public computer in all of Mbale.

This was also before the so-called democratization of film equipment. I found I needed a way to tell my people back home about this place and the people living there. I had no idea of how, when or where to start my new life.

When film equipment started to get digitalized, it also got less expensive. This development has been referred to as “the democratization of filmmaking”. But it was only half the truth: Yes, people got access to cheaper cameras or editing stations, but storytelling was still something you had to be taught to know how to do, and that kind of education was still only for the few.

Even though focus still is on the equipment, now anybody who gets his or her own camera believe to have the road to Hollywood mapped.

A trip that most people will find harder than “the democratization” had promised.

A still image from Robin Färdig experimental movie filmed with a mobile phone camera.

Forgetting the story

This point of view have two major flaws: The stories are forgotten, and Hollywood is consolidated as the only goal for a filmmaker.

And with the lack of stories creativity became forgotten as well; anyone kept coming up with the boy-meets-girl, the revenge, the heist or the supernatural stories. Since the art of speculation in arts was nil and void the filmmakers was stuck with old ideas.

My metaphor is that a great idea is great even when it’s drawn with a stick in the dust — the cheapest equipment you will find — but a lousy idea is still lousy even with the most costly equipment you may find on the market. This “democratization” is a chimera, an illusion.

Trying to find new ways and trying to disregard the constant bustle for the latest equipment, could mean that the refusal of Hollywood as the only goal, and the reinforcement of creativity, will mould you as an artist. This is what I found a decade after my decision to get into the movies.

I learnt to distrust anyone who says there is a need to top up the equipment. There is never this desperate need. Maybe if you’re already settled when it comes to content and creativity, and can afford a brand new camera, you will do that. But to top up the creativity aspects is always the main objective for a true artist. Amateurs seldom see it this way.

In the same way amateurs tend to have too much trust in the academic interpretation of the arts that already exist. Of course, as a filmmaker you need to watch films, but I think that your need to read novels is greater.

Film analysis is to the filmmaker as watching buildings would be to the architect , or for a gardener to take a stroll in a botanical garden — mere personal interest.

It is only when you have put a brick on top of another, or have put the seed in the earth and felt the soil between your fingers, that you know how it is to create. People tend to rely upon the myth that the academic way is the only one, especially since universities have such prestige. This applies especially to western people. Their way is the only one, even though they never felt the soil with their own hands.

Art is practical

You can be an expert in arts or cinema, but that doesn’t make you an artist or a filmmaker — it makes you a critic or a cinematic. Nothing wrong about that, but don’t let anybody fool you and say that it is enough to be an artist. I’ve met quite a number of westerners in Eastern and Southern Africa who emphasize theory in their teaching, and tell students that this will be sufficient to make them filmmakers. It seldom happens.

Art is practical. It’s about hard work and purpose.

I usually say that what I teach you, you cannot find with Google. Everything that is theoretical knowledge, like the name of a certain lens or what kind of layout your script needs, are stuff you can find by googling. To get to know these things you shouldn’t waste more than the Shs500 it costs you to get an hour at an internet café.

To use my metaphor about construction: The feeling of the weight of that brick in your hand and the sweat on your brow, the feeling of the wooden handle on your trowel and the sound of mortar being mixed; you may never google to find these things out.

You have to do it! Let’s start build that house!

But how then?

A new network

I have created a network in East Africa/northern Europe called Video Art Online. The humble beginning is only a well-connected network in a Facebook group since it has been important to keep the project as accessible as possible, even for those who may not have the best internet connection. There are a couple of obvious objectives to this.

The aim of Video Art Online is mainly artistic. Those who search an academic view on arts and the way to create, may find this elsewhere. Not said that an academic view is useless, but the goal is to develop artists — not critics.

Another aim is to challenge our way to look at and to create art. Most of us, either you are born in Africa or Europe, are educated in a Western tradition, and we tell stories by Western tradition. and because of that we mostly listen and watch stories from a Western tradition.

The third aim of Video Art Online is to connect artists around the world. In the beginning we start with my own contacts from East Africa and Northern Europe. Participants are former students of mine, or artist I think may gain from this kind of network. Networks are always good and exchange programs are fruitful by nature.

People who meet and talk about their mutual interests will develop in these areas. We may be living in different contexts, working with different stuff, studying different topics, but when we join up in a shared artistic drive, it will lead to wonders.

Cell phone filmmaking

Another less obvious objective is something that I want to share, and that get us back to the first part of this article. Most of us have — or know someone who has — the equipment needed to create movies already in their pocket: the cell phone camera!

I have myself created video art that has toured the world, shot simply by my very old and very cheap cell phone. (There have even been some feature length films shot merely by cellphones, e.g. An Extraordinary Study in Human Degradation. And some of them have even won awards and made the makers celebrities … if that’s what you’re after).

Step One when creating with your cellphone camera, is to remember that your creation does not have to look like films you have seen on film analysis courses or at the theatre. Your film should look like your film.

The most common story is one with a beginning, a middle and an end. Try to do something else. Try to shoot only the middle part of a story.

Step Two is to let go of all the rules you learnt at that scriptwriting course and start to use the rules as tools in a later phase of your filmmaking. Oppose the common demand of context, sequence and consistence in your story.

Step Three is to start from where you are: If you don’t have an editing station, try to make a short film — let’s say 1-3 minutes — in one shot.

And if it’s easier for you, give yourself a theme: Love, runners, faces, or anything! It doesn’t really matter how you name it.

Finally, you should constantly bear in mind that your most valuable capital is your ideas. Don’t walk the safe way — walk a new way. You cannot dig a new hole by digging the same hole deeper.

Robin Färdig is a Swedish director and writer for film & theater; continously travelling the world to make art, and to lecture in the areas of creativity, content and storytelling. He considers Uganda to be his second home. He can be contacted by email: robinfardig at gmail dot com.

Written by Dennis Große-Plankermann, intern at Goethe-Zentrum Kampala

With its motto Open Studio, the LaBa! Arts Festival’s 7th edition wants to give visitors the opportunity for a look behind the scenes. The process of artistic production is important here, not the finished product.

But the creative bunch of around 60 individual artists will not merely be working while others can watch them, but even engage the public in their projects, designed just for the day.

This year, the Goethe-Zentrum Kampala/Ugandan German Cultural Society has — for the first time — called for application. While artists used to rent tents at LaBa! to showcase and sell their work, this time they did not have to pay for their stall. Instead, they had to apply with a creative idea and convince the festival committee.

Selecting artists for LaBa! 2013.

GZK/UGCS Director Carolin Christgau says, “It’s very uncommon for the artists to hand in such a concept and we didn’t know at all what would happen — would it scare them off? Now we know it didn’t: We got so many interesting applications that the selection process became difficult.”

Filmmakers, painters, fashion designers, poets, dancers; the festival presents every art genre.

Automatically, the diversity of genres leads to a diversity of activities: How will a painter construct an open studio? How will the filmmaker involve the public? How will the poet share his/her work?

However they do it, they will do it all day long; the festival will run from 11am to 11pm.

From last year’s LaBa! Street Art Festival.

When the music stage opens in late afternoon, it will feature some of the finest artists of Uganda, including Jamal, Suzan Kerunen and Jackie Akello, and also give newcomers a chance to perform.

World Music, R & B, reggae, afropop — the variety of genres reflects the overall diversity of the festival. Also the music will not be drowned out by children’s screams of boredom: A programme for little-ones will make them play, experience art and leave them with their eyes open.

LaBa! could make Mackinnon Road dream a little on May 25^th. Or dance. Or maybe both.

Written by Henry Mzili Mujunga

These sound like chants straight out of the communist manifesto, but they are simply the lamentations of a hopeless artist whose every move forward has been checked by disparaging stereotypes.

One would be quick to assume that art is the last frontier of resistance to this form of suppression and dominance. After all, it is what really defines a people’s existence.

Ugandan visual artist Henry Mzili Mujunga

However, when one beholds his kindred producing meaningless pieces of decoration for the flippant and their disguised agents, one cannot help but confirm, albeit fearfully, that the African artist has provided the ever-changing chameleon yet another spot in its coat of many colours.

As an ardent agent of meaningless labour, this writer has continued to explore the gist of “creativity without creating” under the guise of abstract expressionism

(A monkey see monkey do affair). Every time I have thought about a new way of doing Art, I have ended up evoking the spirit of a dead European Artist!

The dilemma is too deep to plug. To define art from my tribal perspective is next to impossible. I have not come across a verb in my language accurately defining my profession as an artist. All strings that I try to tie between Art practice in the West and my Kiganda experience are loosened by the fact that art, as we practice it today, is irrelevant and redundant to my people.

In fact quite often my work has been referred to as Volongoto, a derogatory Luganda word meaning something mixed up and meaningless.

The oppressor has allegedly evolved modern art through all its fundament facets single-handedly without acknowledging the contribution from Africa and Oceania.

I know of an artist from Mozambique popularly known as the Picasso of Africa.

Oh yes!

I also know a young man from South Africa (originally from Kenya) who has carved himself a niche as the van Gogh of Africa!

How I wish someone would start calling me names too! May be then I would get to show in the popular Art galleries and museums in Europe and America.

Recently I received a most exciting article from Senegalese critic, Iba Ndiaye Diadji, in which he was feeling around for the root cause of the lack of acceptance of the African artist by his host community. He seemed to put the blame squarely on the Artists. He rightly observed that we were producing art for the west.

I for one see no problem in this as long as the market for this type of art exists. One cannot afford to ignore the monetary factor in the art business. Besides the west have the proper institutions for propagating, marketing and showing this type of art.

One cannot produce art for the starving African unless it is in the quest of filling his (the African’s) tummy and is offered free of charge!

As such any attempt at making festivals and major shows of African art on the continent, such as the Dakar Biennale and in the Diaspora, will continue to mainly draw attention from Western collectors, experts and art lovers. The ordinary African is too busy scratching for a living to indulge in such flippancy.

In the midst of all this agony there must surely be an escape route.

Ndiaye seems to recommend a pro people, humanitarian type of art as the only way to interest African audiences. He sights musicians such as Youssou N’Dour and Manu Dibango, and the entire African fashion industry as a good example of achieving this.

But I would like to point out the number of contemporary artists working in Kampala who are producing work that is filled with African symbolisms, they still are ignored by the affluent middle class who opt for Western photographs of horses in the meadow and chimpanzees seated on toilets as a major source of décor for their mansions.

One cannot ignore the reciprocation of world culture that occurred at the turn of the 20^th century. Picasso stole African abstraction and Africa stole classical realism!

Today’s artist must see himself as a pioneering missionary for art, willing to lay down his life and reputation as well as millet for it. There is a need for us to invent terms to describe Western art concepts such as gallery, private view, abstract art (Volongoto?) and so on in our local dialects.

We must “civilize” — to borrow Diadji’s pun — African audiences to appreciate the custodian role that art plays for its society. We would know next to nothing about early man if he had not drawn on the walls of his dwellings.

It must also be emphasized that the utilitarian objects, such as baskets, mats and pots heather to referred to as crafts are indeed what constitute the bulk of art from the African continent and as such ought to be embraced by all art schools on the continent.

The local artists must also integrate these ancient crafts and skills into their production processes. Weaving has become an integral part of the curriculum at Makerere School of Fine Art in Uganda. Similarly, the Ugandan artist Sanaa Gateja, who uses sewing and stitching in his bark cloth paintings, is a prime example of innovative ‘Africanization’ in art.

Finally, African artists must struggle to establish and control the infrastructure necessary for marketing, showing and preserving their art if it is to be appreciated by future generations. One cannot rely on the corrupt African political system to address this refined and urgent need.

Henry Mzili Mujunga dreams most of the time about art (visions of grandeur?). He insists that African art forms the gist of modern art and as such ought to be at the fore front of things. Henry is an eclectic artist who enjoys painting, printmaking, and conceptual art. His art has been exhibited extensively throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe. He is the co-founder of the Kampala Arts Trust and the Start Journal of Arts and Culture.

Written by Elizabeth Namakula

While a whirlwind of tributes has poured in in the wake of Achebe’s death, we have been left to ponder his contributions to African literature and the literature body generally, and to see if he rightfully deserved the continent’s honor: The father of modern African literature. And while at it, also weigh the relevance of his work to the present generation.

Chinua Achebe speaking at Asbury Hall, Buffalo, as part of the “Babel: Season 2″ series by Just Buffalo Literary Center, Hallwalls, & the International Institute. Photo by Stuart C. Shapiro.

Through his various works, Achebe stressed the African perspective to the story of colonialism in Nigeria as seen through the novels Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease, which in their unique way reveal the clash between the Igbo and the British in Nigeria. First from the perspective of a Nigerian father (Okonkwo) in Things Fall Apart, and then the perspective of his European educated son (Obi) in No Longer at Ease.

Before Achebe, the African narrative had been bequeathed to Amos Tutuola (The Palm-Wine Drinkard), Camara Laye (The African Child) and several others. As it turned out, they were inefficient. The likes of Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness) and Joyce Cary (Mister Johnson) hijacked it and represented only one broad perspective of Africa. Justifying the proverb that goes, “Until the lion learns to speak, the tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter.”

“The white man was generally good and reasonable, intelligent and courageous. The savages in comparison were sinister, stupid and at the most, cunning. I hated their guts,” Achebe has said recalling visits to his secondary school library.

Upon becoming older he must have resolved, that what he experienced as a young reader must never happen again to another. Maybe this was inspiration for his future work, which would enable Africans to pick up a book and see themselves as they really were, and not as the foreigners loved to see them.

In Things fall Apart, Okonkwo is depicted as a man who commits suicide because he cannot tolerate the self-hatred he is forced to adopt to please his colonial masters. An act which led to the view that rarely do cultures meet on an equal footing.

“The feet-stamping, body-swaying, eyes-rolling Africans portrayed in Heart of Darkness were devoid of all humanity. They were trapped in a ‘primordial barbarity’ which had no faith or feeling.” (Achebe: An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’)

Even though later he was criticized for reading racism into a novel that was a general description of the traveler’s experiences, Achebe never recanted his position.

Okweri Isaac, a fan of Achebe’s work for many years, echoes these feelings:

“My father didn’t leave me much, but among the things he passed down to me was a copy of Things Fall Apart, which I have since passed onto my son. I believe my father gave me this book with the hope that I will not forget my heritage and lose myself in the wave of this so-called civilization, where the only room it gives us to be in is the backroom fit for the uncouth.”

Colonial hangover

However, Achebe did not only wrote about the collision between Africa and the Western civilization. In the essay The Trouble with Nigeria he urges that the people who once were colonized have ended up enslaving their own, and he particularly pours contempt on the corrupt and self-centered African elite who he blames for the continent’s woes.

Kulumba Kuteesa, a student of the Literature Department at Makerere University, had this to say in relation to this:

“I am very sure that Chinua Achebe was trying to put across a point in writing these books. So I am asking myself and others, what have we done with the books rather than shoving them under our beds? I am more disappointed in the elite of today because they are not doing any work. They are not writing useful books and neither are they doing any constructive criticism other than jumping to bed with any corrupt government that will enrich their coffers.”

Betty Kamya, the founder of Uganda Federal Alliance and former Vice President of FDC, seems to agree with Achebe as well:

“I fell in love with Chinua Achebe when I was still a teenager. This was after I had read Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease. To this day, I still remember with clarity the things I read, and I can only say that each generation has its challenges. The 1950s generation had started to take exception to the colonial hangover that the African elite at the time were suffering from.

Years later, I regret that we have not liberated our minds from the colonial hangover. The Chinese and Indian have held on to their culture and you can see what they have accomplished financially. So his work is still relevant to us and it’s my call to the young generation to let Achebe rest in peace by embracing the generational challenge. Give us back the Africa that we can be proud of.”

Shaping the course of modern African writing

Achebe also served as the advisory editor for the first hundred titles at Heinemann between 1962 and 1964. During one of his visits to Makerere University, he was asked to read a novel by a student, James Ngugi (later known as Ngugi wa Thiong’o) called Weep Not, Child. Later it was selected as one of the first titles of Heinemann’s African Writers Series.

He must have read hundreds of manuscripts during his tenure there, and single-handedly shaping the course of modern African writing, especially the novel, and because of that, it is impossible to imagine contemporary African literature without his influence.

From 2009 until his death, he was serving as a professor at Brown University in the US. During his lifetime, he received The Nigerian Order of Merit which is Nigeria’s highest honor for academic work.  It is said that Nelson Mandela, while recalling his time as a political prisoner, referred to Achebe as the writer, “In whose company the prison walls fell down.”

And celebrated American author Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) heaped praise on Things Fall Apart as the book wherein all readers meet their brothers, sisters, parents and friends along Nigerian roads.

That is quite a milestone for an African writer, justifying the widely held view that he was the father of modern African literature.

Having said that, does it still stand that his legacy is uncontested for?

How come he failed to win the much revered Nobel Prize in Literature and instead it went to his Nigerian counterpart, Wole Soyinka? Why be so against Western civilization and then use the English medium for your works? Why be so much against imperialism when for more than thirty years you choose to live abroad and die on foreign soil? Why abdicate your Christian name, yet your father was a minister in the Protestant Church Mission Society?

Then there was that participation and involvement in the Biafra war, going as far as becoming an ambassador for the secessionists. These and more paradoxes lead to the questioning of his legacy as some Ugandans felt even though the majority chose to heap praises on him.

Referring to Achebe’s use of the English language in all his works, Dr Susan Kiguli, author of the highly acclaimed book The African Saga, had this to say:

“Achebe was once asked why he used the English language yet he appeared as resenting the white man’s intrusion in Africa. He responded with this, ‘I will use the English language because it has been given to me and I cannot run away from it. It will be an African English though.’ Hence his romance with African proverbs littered throughout his works.”

However responding to the dropping of Christian names as Achebe did with his (he was christened Albert Chinualumogu Achebe), she said:

“I don’t use the name Susan for the reason that it is a Jewish name. It does not come to me as a colonial name; rather it’s a sentimental name that has been passed down to me from a long line of beautiful women. It is part of my heritage and it belongs to a face I can identify with.”

On failing to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which Wole Soyinka won in 1988, Achebe himself said:

“My position is that the Nobel is important. But it is a European prize, not an African prize. Literature is not a heavyweight championship. Nigerians may think, you know, this man has been knocked out, but it’s nothing to do with that.”

A person named Rugambwa, (he personally requested not to use his Christian name Steve just like Achebe dropped Albert) in response also added:

“Achebe didn’t need the Nobel Prize; his achievements surpassed the Nobel by far. I have learnt a lot from him. In his own way, he was an activist turning down two Merit Awards from the Nigerian government because of corruption. He was also a pan-Africanist. It’s not totally true he was anti-western; there were some good ideas like the use of English that he incorporated in his writing.”

The Achebe Prize

On April 6th, in the wake of Achebe’s death, Makerere Institute of Social Research and the University’s Literature Department announced that a literary prize in honor of Achebe was to be launched. This generated a buzz among an audience full of students, Fountain Publishers, professors and other Makerere alumni. At its end, shs 5,000,000 for the Prize had been pledged with shs 1,000,000 to be spent yearly.

Professor Mahmood Mamdani said that contributions for the Achebe Prize are still welcome. The MISR Director further added, “The prize is meant to get people to focus on life as it is lived in Africa.”

The Achebe Prize will be for undergraduate students only.

Nakisanze Segawa, a writer with Femrite decried the Achebe Prize, saying, “How come there wasn’t one set up in the name of Okot P’Bitek. It is so Ugandan not to treasure our own and go to Nigeria to look for role models. Okot taught in this very University, and they won’t honor him but will honor Achebe?”

In another twist of irony, Chike Isaac, a Nigerian, said, “Back home in Nigeria, they may not start the commemorations till next year. But just so you know, he was a great writer who got plunged into the Nigerian politics in the Biafra civil war.”

In conclusion, it is pointless to simply pour praise on Achebe and yet at the same time, it is totally unforgivable to forget his contribution to African Literature. So, I will end with his own words, “If you don’t like someone else’s story, go ahead and write your own.”

Simply put, if you don’t like his legacy, go ahead and make your own, but whatever you do, don’t stop trying!

Elizabeth Namakula is a freelance writer living in Kampala, Uganda. Her short story “A World of Our Own” was recently published in the Femrite-collection “World of Our Own”.

Written by Elizabeth Namakula

Against such a background came the Ernst May Exhibition on 9^th April this year at the Uganda Museum. It was organized by the Germany Embassy and designed as a tribute to the rapidly expanding and modernizing city of Kampala.

Images by Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa. From the Ernst May exhibition at Uganda Museum April 2013.

The German architect Ernst May successfully applied urban design techniques, especially the concept of a garden city in which community concepts like playgrounds, schools and theatres were applied, to the city of Frankfurt and Main during Germany’s Weimer Period in the 1920s.

His fondness for functionality and love of egalitarian ideas, such as equal access to sunlight, air and common areas, soon had the Soviet Union’s Stalin calling for May’s Midas touch to be applied to the newly created soviet cities way back in 1930.

A brief change in the fortunes of Germany saw Ernst May exiled to British East Africa where he established a farm in Kenya. However he soon gave up farming and established an architectural office; designing commercial buildings, hotels and schools.

Notable among those were a school and a hospital for the Aga Khan, Kenwood house in Nairobi and the Hotel Oceanic in Mombasa — which has since been demolished.

Kampala landmarks

Here in Uganda, he designed some of the landmark buildings like the Uganda Museum, The British and American Tobacco building (on your way to Bugolobi), the City House in Kampala (located between William and Luwum Street), and the workers settlement in Nakawa which was demolished in 2011.

This was as a result of an invitation extended to May by the British Protectorate Authorities in 1945, to develop a plan for the fast-growing city of Kampala. The city had developed out of Kabaka Mutesa’s Kibuga which was an organized structure. Kibuga (City) was the traditional capital of the Buganda Kingdom, located on Mengo Hill.

May went ahead and drew the plans that became the first in East Africa to include low and large settlements for low and middle-income African and Asians, and more so, those that had already been displaced in the expansion process. The plan also consisted of infrastructure measures like roads, water, electricity and green areas for recreation and social gathering.

From the Ernst May exhibition at Uganda Museum April 2013.

However Ernst May’s architectural legacy in East Africa as of today is facing extinction. Hotel Oceanic in Mombasa was demolished in 2000, as well was the workers complex in Nakawa in 2011. The buildings next to the Uganda Museum, including the director of the Museum’s house, were demolished to make space for the British High Commission and the British Council.

And then, there was the proposal to have the Museum itself demolished to make room for an ambitious skyscraper.

Balancing modernization with conservation

Speaking at the event, the German Ambassador to Uganda, Klaus Dieter Duxmann, said:

“This has come at an appropriate time. We all feel the constraints and pressure put on the infrastructure in Kampala which has got to do with the influx of people. The population has increased from what the city had been planned for, hence the need for this exhibition to explore the work of Ernst May and to experience the link between his German roots and his African work, based on his vision of Kampala as a garden city.”

Images by Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa. From the Ernst May exhibition at Uganda Museum April 2013.

The Executive Director of KCCA, Jennifer Musisi, was also in attendance. In trying to fulfill her work mandated to transform the city, a lot has stood in her way. Threats to her life have been made with people resisting her very efforts.

The reason behind all this, apparently, is that the majority of Kampalans who don’t have a decent income, exploit the city’s conditions lucratively. Thieves, idlers and criminals have an opportunity to thrive in the chaos Kampala is in today. They are not the only ones, even those rich enough to have travelled and seen how other cities are structured will not cooperate in any way simply because some of their interests are at stake. Hence her remarks:

“I want to thank the Germany Embassy and all our other partners for bringing to our attention the great work that Ernst May did in transforming the city. KCCA has embarked on a series of actionable steps to improve the city and its systems in order to resolve the current structural constraints. This will include putting essential infrastructure in place and rationalizing, upgrading services, in order to create a modern, vibrant and sustainable city that provides an enhanced quality for all.”

However, she also had regrets over the serious omissions made in applying strict urban planning and architectural guidelines in the administration of the city, which she says has had a negative impact on the provision of adequate urban facilities in an acceptable and sustainable manner.

Katrin Peters-Klaphake, the curator at Makerere Art Gallery, also echoed these same sentiments, “Kampala is still growing rapidly; urbanity as a living condition has become a social reality for many people.”

However she believed this should not be done at the expense of buildings deemed as historical:

“Respecting and conserving the urban heritage of different provenances and times are crucial. In Uganda this includes vernacular architecture, Asian and colonial influences as well as early post colonial building. There needs to be a balance with the necessary process of modernization. Achieving this balance is one of the challenges faced by metropolises in many parts of the world today.”

From the Ernst May exhibition at Uganda Museum April 2013.

A city of seven hills

According to Ernst May, Kampala spread over a number of hills composed of lateritic iron stone intersected by swampy valleys. The tops of these hills, he said were too steep for economic building and were therefore reserved as open spaces in some cases by individual buildings of special importance.

In his day, Nakasero Hill accommodated European and Asian dwellings, and the business center of Kampala stretched along the southern slope — which is still the case today. In contrast, Mengo Hill was the seat of his Highness, the Kabaka of Buganda and of the Buganda government. This also formed the center of a large African residential area. Again, it still stands as that today.

Rubaga Hill was the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Mission dominated by a huge cathedral which still stands there, while Namirembe Hill accommodated the Church Missionary Society’s mission and its cathedral formed one of the characteristic dominants of the city. Nothing has changed.

Makerere Hill was then developing into a center for East African higher education and it eventually did become one. Currently, it is one of the landmark universities in the region, having produced most of the region’s presidents.

Mulago Hill carried the concentration of the medical services. Currently, it is the national referral hospital in Uganda. Big medical cases are referred there.

From the Ernst May exhibition at Uganda Museum April 2013.

May’s architectural plans were intended for the Kololo-Naguru extension scheme. He hoped that Kololo Hill would predominantly house European and Asians while Naguru Hill would be exclusively reserved for the African communities. The same would apply to its southern annex Nakawa, which would accommodate itinerant African labour, hence the workers’ settlement in Nakawa built after May’s plans.

From the Ernst May exhibition at Uganda Museum April 2013.

Today, when you look at Kololo Hill, the architect’s original plans were incorporated and the same is true for Naguru Hill, leading to the view that May indisputably worked in a colonial context, mindset and hierarchy. But that aside, he also believed in the city as a social space that should provide good living conditions for all its inhabitants.

From the Ernst May exhibition at Uganda Museum April 2013.

As KCCA moves ahead in its ambition to transform the city, a look at May’s work will hopefully offer some useful ideas in regard to Kampala being transformed into a garden city. I  will look forward to that day, won’t you?

Elizabeth Namakula is a freelance writer living in Kampala, Uganda. Her short story “A World of Our Own” was recently published in the Femrite-collection “World of Our Own”.

All photos by Thomas Bjørnskau.

Written by Serubiri Moses

One day I translated a couple of lyrics by the guitarist Paulo Kafeero, and got to pen down such lines as “I want to see Death’s tongue”. I was aware of the fact that my writings in English were mere interpretations, and could never have the impact of the original Luganda in which the lyrics were written.

However, as an experiment I brought an excerpt in the form of an untitled English poem to a poetry meeting. As it was being read by someone other than myself, I watched the strangest reactions to the poem. Like dogs with noses pointed in the air.

As one man struggled to wrap his mind around the poem, he seemed to be summoning a spirit from within. At last, they settled into the normal academic analysis of the poem, pointing out its merits and demerits based on meter, poetic form and expression. But then, a woman named Rosie pointed out that there was something colloquial about the expression “his skin lost its soup”. She noted that, having written her postgraduate thesis on Okot p’Bitek, this line reminded her of his poems, which were originally written in Acholi, and only then translated to English.

Being that the setup of the poetry meeting was academic English poetry analysis, those who were present were unable to fully understand the culture in which the poem represented, except for the scholar in African or World literature. However, when the man who seemed to be summoning a spirit from within, revealed that the lines were identical to a song by Ugandan guitar musician Paulo Kafeero, everyone exhaled loudly, glad to have solved the mystery that the poem was a mere translation from a known Luganda song.

Illustration by Jackson. © All rights reserved 2013.

The purity of the Western world

My primary school science teacher Mr. Kerudong recollected one day in the classroom how clean Kampala was in 1970. “Clean” was the adjective he used deliberately to impose on our 10-year-old minds how “dirty” the city had become. As children of exiled parents, the immediate effect was to further our desire for — what is commonly thought of as — the purity of the Western world. However, Mr. Kerudong did not inform us of the kind of Ugandan society he referred to in 1970.

Milton Obote’s regime led the attacks on Mengo in 1966, causing the King and President of Uganda to flee into exile. For many Ugandans, this was the start of yet another radical change in their identity, since British colonial education as well as the Arab and Portuguese trade both imparted strong culture. Obote went on to ban Uganda’s kingdom culture, rooting instead for African Nationalism.

One should note that with the dissolving of kingdoms and other forms of tribal self-governance came the rise of exile as an identity both at home and abroad. Exile involved a systematic approach to forgetfulness, in which many people would choose to migrate to the developed world to give birth there. They reasoned that if their children were born in the developed world, they could inhabit a completely new identity.

Chinua Achebe’s novel A Man of the People, released in 1966 (the same year as the Uganda Crisis), is a critique of post-colonial nationalism. In it, the media’s role as a tool for the propaganda, and through which information is leaked about the coup d’etat which ends the novel, cannot be overstated. A military coup occurred shortly after the book release causing Achebe to become blacklisted as an organizer. He escaped with his family into exile where he spent his literary career. Bard College has named the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists after him.

The Voice of Uganda newspaper in 1977 reported on only about two arts events. One was the preview of a Polish pianist for an all Chopin programme at the National Theatre, and the other was a piece on the Ugandan artist delegation that attended FESTAC in Nigeria.

However, the newspaper was saturated with the image of Marshall, as they called him. In one of the photographs, Idi Amin is showing the white delegates wild game in the national park, and in another he stands in a t-shirt and beach shorts with his wife, Sarah Amin, alongside Russian delegates equally clad in casual dress.

The media’s role therefore was to promote political figures and subvert the intellectual arts. In Uganda, guitar music had developed in the 1950s, and had a huge following by 1975, but the media was forced to ignore its audience or the music itself because of the dictates of political society to create political dominance and popularity.

Purified the music

Mr. Kerudong’s comment on a “clean” Kampala in 1970 also denotes ‘modernization’. The guitar music of Kadongo Kamu, steeped in Uganda’s ethnic music and foreign to the occidental musical scale, was seen as retrogressive to Uganda’s modernization. Many who inhabited the new identity of modernization, and especially those who set off into willful exile, negated the value of this guitar music and its artists.

In order to combat this continuous suppression of the guitar music by especially the media, Paul Kafeero one night dragged a white woman on stage in 1991. The now famous photograph taken that night shows a white woman wearing Ugandan busuuti dress kneeling before a guitar-playing Kafeero. It would not be unreasonable to say that once that photograph got printed in the newspapers, it “purified” the music.

The photograph does not permit the viewer to be distant from Kafeero or his guitar music. In sharp contrast to images in newspapers in the early 1990s, which emphasized the presence of street kids, road accidents and armed rebel groups, the image seem to be void of such politically charged reportage. Instead, we see the coming together of man and woman, accompanied by a guitar. The image positions dialogues of race, modernization, kingdom culture, postcolonial exile framed in one moment.

Continuous alienation of African culture

Similar allusions to modernization are found within Child’s Doll, a magnum opus from the mid 1990s by Fred Sebatta. In it, the metaphor of a car captures the continuous alienation of African culture, both on the continent and abroad, characterized by the postcolonial obsession with America.

I cannot escape thinking of that engrossing line sung by Sebatta to his wife in the song, “you sleep (in a bed) so rickety-looking, it gives me the shivers.” It is only symbolic of everything else he despises.

It reminds me of negritude poet Aimé Césaire when writing of his mother, “I was even awakened at night by these tireless legs which pedal the night, and the bitter bite of the soft flesh of the night of a Singer that my mother pedals, pedals for our hunger and day and night.”

Césaire despises his mother’s poverty. And thus deliberately distances himself. Speaking metaphorically, his mother’s poverty is Martinique and the African diaspora world from an oriental view-point.

In the memory he has of home (as Césaire is not in Martinique when he writes this poem), one had to look instead at a collective Africanness, which became in writing, a collective forgetfulness. The Singer machine is what saves his family from hunger. Forgetfulness mixes with the desire to modernize Martinique, spilling onto the page as anger.

“Forget about Stella who cannot eat dolls!”

The man in Child’s Doll uses hunger as an excuse for his work behavior, but this seems to continue until the end of the song where the couple breaks up. Forgetfulness cannot be a state of identity except for those who are mentally incapacitated.

The change of Ugandan society

This series of lyrics revealer can be a metaphor for the change of Ugandan society into an individualistic one during the 1990s, the period in which the song was written. Unlike the 1970s which developed public infrastructure, the 90s showed a boom in construction of personal residencies within the country. Hence, the man’s excuse for forgetting his wife and family is that he is working hard to build a house.

Ugandan identity today remains a complex mixture of several incoherent components. For example, kingdom culture has never regained its original value, and the king of Buganda, Ronald Mutebi II, is treated as if he were a mere politician; NGOs seem to emphasize the narrative of a poverty and war-ravaged Uganda while the political and working class continues to indulge in technology and willful exile.

Because of this complex state of identity, it is almost impossible for the generation born after 1975 to fully appreciate the guitar music of Kadongo Kamu, as my experiment in translation showed. The persons who are capable of understanding such cultural metaphors, such as are in Fred Sebatta’s Child’s Doll, are scholars of African literature, a field of research increasingly unpopular at the universities.

Mr. Kerudong’s 1990s class of pupils seems to be more interested in Chinese, South Korean or American technology than this “local” guitar music. The music seems to suggest retrogression as opposed to modernization, in their ears. This “filth” of Kampala remains locked out of their air-conditioned cars and apartments confined to downtown pubs and music festivals, while they continue to inhabit an uncertain state of exile. The historical impact of exile onto this generation of Ugandans, implies a growing need to translate Ugandan culture and much-needed exercises in remembering.

This article was written during a writing residency at 32 degrees East in March 2013.

Serubir Moses has been published in The New Vision reviewing live music. As a poet, he is featured on the pan African website, Badilisha Poetry Exchange.

Written by Kirsten Scott

Handicraft continues to be an important means of production of everyday and decorative items in Uganda, particularly in rural areas. One way or another craft makes a significant contribution to both the formal and informal economy.

But Ugandan craft can go so much further.

While there is a strong market for traditional Ugandan crafts amongst tourists, the craft export market is still relatively small. The capacity for Ugandan craftsmanship to be applied to contemporary design-led products for overseas markets is huge.

However, international businesses wishing to work with Ugandan artisans face many challenges and need to understand more about the circumstances that may affect artisans’ ability to do business in the ways we are more accustomed to in Europe and the rest of the world. Ugandans wanting to sell crafts overseas also need to take on board the very different work culture they will encounter. To some extent expectations on both sides should be adjusted accordingly.

Artisans. Photo by Kirsten Scott.

However beautiful Ugandan craft products may be, it will be difficult for them to succeed in a global market unless certain conditions can be met. At the heart of this difficulty lies an insufficient understanding on both sides of the other’s worlds.[1]

In my opinion,

• tight deadlines,
• consistent quality,
• innovation,
• committed partners, and
• good communication

are fundamental to successful participation in global trade, over and above the products themselves.

Innovation

In Uganda new craft ideas are quickly copied — and therefore devalued — so artisans need to stay ahead of the game. Products must be different, cheaper or of significantly better quality than those already on the market, and there is a need for ongoing design innovation and market knowledge.

In a craft culture that has historically valued repetition of traditional techniques and designs, and where few have access to formal design training or information on fast-changing overseas trends, this is a challenge.

Commitment

A number of visitors to Uganda decide to set up craft-related projects to support of artisans in income generation. Many of these projects quickly flounder for all sorts of reasons and there is a certain amount of justifiable cynicism amongst some artisans about do-gooding westerners.

Some amateur designers, however well meaning, have little or no design experience and often advise artisans simply to re-produce things that are already on the market. They are unequipped to think ahead and innovate in order to help the artisans move designs forward, and so their products don’t sell. As a result artisans may be reluctant to fully commit to a craft project because too many others have been unsuccessful or short-term.

Western visitors need to appreciate the responsibility that working with artisans places upon them and honour it by acknowledging their own limitations.

Artisans at work. Photo by Kirsten Scott.

Timeliness

Appointments and deadlines for craft orders may be unrealistic and fail to take account of the daily challenges faced by some artisans. To those of us from the UK, for example, where punctuality is culturally important, this can be problematic.

Often the craftspeople are women who shoulder enormous responsibilities: planting, weeding, harvesting, cooking, collecting firewood and water, giving birth to and caring for many children and other dependents, managing regular bouts of malaria etc. They may not see the importance of a timely start to a meeting or an order deadline, because it is of less urgency to them in a given moment than taking advantage of rain-softened soil or tending to a sick child.

But how much is the fluidity of deadlines in Uganda shaped by need, and how much is it a cultural acceptance of things happening when they happen? However understandable the reasons for late orders or missed meetings etc. may be, they are obstacles to developing a sustainable craft export business.

Communication

Communication between westerners and Ugandan artisans can be one of the biggest challenges. Most westerners speak little or none of the local languages and although some artisans speak good English there are cultural differences/nuances/habits in the ways that we express ourselves. It is essential that both sides understand that what they hear is not necessarily what is being said.

I have found that showing what I mean (for example, a technique, colour or a style detail) is better than just saying what I want. But that doesn’t help me when I am back in the UK trying to place an order. Even if the artisans have a regular phone signal or internet access, communication is a challenge.

In order to have a question answered it is helpful to include only one question per message. One cannot be clear enough. Artisans would do well to read and re-read messages and query anything they are not sure about.

Misunderstandings can mean that artisans lose valuable time by making the wrong product for an order, and the purchaser will either be disappointed and/or out of pocket for something they neither asked for nor wanted, or will refuse to pay. This causes disillusionment on both sides. It is helpful to have a project manager on the ground that is used to dealing with overseas partners and understands what is required.

Quality

To ensure the sustainability of a craft project, orders must be met accurately and be of consistent quality. Errors in orders mean that customers are lost. An understanding of how some quality issues arise may help to prevent them.

Westerners and artisans may need to understand how poverty can affect quality and find solutions where possible. For example, if dyes bought in the market turn out to be a different colour from that indicated on their wrapping, artisans may be unable to afford the expense of another packet. But if an investment is made in larger quantities of dye at the start, then that particular problem is eliminated.

Living conditions can result in craft items being nibbled by pests but still offered for sale because of an artisan’s need. Investment in a metal container for the crafts that shuts securely will minimise this.

Domestic commitments may mean that artisans have insufficient time to practise and perfect their skills; this is a difficult one. It is important not to demand too much too quickly. Those from overseas who want to work with Ugandan artisans in this way need to show the commitment to be in it for the long haul and to plan longer deadlines. This is a challenge to the short term-ism of western business culture, but circumstances should rapidly improve for artisans as a project grows.

Protection of cultural heritage

With a national focus on more conventional forms of educational training, craft has been devalued in Uganda as an activity performed by the less educated and particularly by women. More value needs to be placed on craft: including formal vocational training and support for craft groups to help them to share their knowledge with a younger generation, to find new markets, and to develop new designs.

Better stewardship of natural resources is needed to ensure that craft materials such as palm leaves and bark cloth are protected for future generations.

In some districts there has been a shortage of palm leaves due to trees — whose leaves have been sustainably harvested for centuries — being cut down and their trunks sold as fence posts. This is short-term thinking — where the selfishness of one or two people is affecting the livelihood of many others. Penalties should be firmly imposed on those who destroy important natural resources in this way.

Conclusion

Ugandan craftspeople can offer unique, hand-made goods to a world that is increasingly looking for alternatives to uniform, mass-produced goods. Handicraft is both an art form and an environmentally sustainable manufacturing method that should be appreciated, valued and fostered.

A Ugandan Crafts Council is needed to encourage and highlight the best in Ugandan craft, showcasing good practice by exhibiting inspirational work to a new generation and building the profile of Ugandan craft on the international arts stage.

More training is needed for artisans on how to promote their work and how to conduct business with overseas partners etc.

In turn, overseas partners need to have as flexible approach as possible, to develop products that tolerate and even celebrate a certain amount of inconsistency and to make a long-term commitment to working with artisan groups in Uganda in a meaningful way.

Dr Kirsten Scott works in research, education and accessory design, and has been involved in a craft development project she set up in Uganda for the last seven years.

[1] I would like to begin a dialogue with those involved in craft projects, on both sides, to uncover as many of the issues as possible in order to find ways to resolve them and welcome any discussion about this.

Start the discussion below!

Reviewed by Serubiri Moses

A musician once told me, “I always get stage fright.” Scientifically, stage fright usually causes a “racing heart, a dry mouth, a shaky voice, blushing, trembling, sweating and nausea.” Then they added, “This happens before I go on stage, but after I sing a couple of songs, it goes away completely.”

When Qreas-Emmy got up to raise the curtain, he looked very confident. Emmanuel Dragu, the MC, introduced him as “the best rapper in Uganda”. A CD started to playback through the monitors placed around the open air amphitheater style stage of the Sheraton Lion Bar.

It could have been the mass of nimbus clouds that had darkened the sky that night, or the chilly breeze that sprawled from the valley uphill blowing palm trees in the Sheraton gardens, but Qreas’ hands were cold stiff when he got off the stage.

The audience applauded loudly. He was quickly followed by an R&B singer who looked and sounded as if he’d jumped out of the 1970s Motown era. He sang in an earnest contralto, all the while reprising the line, “I’ve never seen a beautiful African like you.” Beside casting a retro atmosphere on the little amphitheater stage, the phrase sounded a bit patronizing.

From the Percussion Experience at the Lions Bar Sheraton Hotel, Kampala. Photo by Serubiri Moses.

Setting the stage

Since the lineup of the show included musicians as widely sought-after as drummer Roy Kasika and percussionist James Ssewakiryanga, everyone in the audience expected the predictable cover of Carlos Santana and R&B duo Product G&B’s song Maria Maria. However, the addition of hip-hop rappers and beat boxers was an anomaly that would shine throughout a concert which aimed at combining jazz and hip-hop.

Because Qreas-Emmy is known outside of and not within the jazz circuit, there was a crucial conflict of identity on stage. The tension between hip-hop and jazz grew so taut during the show that one thought it might fracture, even though it is a subject which might have inspired the concert in the first place.

The audience was left slightly agape when “the best rapper in Uganda” was asked to curtain-raise. Was it because hip-hop is percussive; was it because rappers are known to appreciate “rhythm”; was it because hip-hop, like all African music, is “rhythmic”?

I am fascinated by all of the questions, but care mostly for that last one. It would be evident throughout the show that percussion players needed to prove their ability to stand independently.

But as a result, or as a matter of fact, there seemed to be no time at which each instrument could breathe life into the overall performance.

Conga playing

The exception would appear when James Ssewakiryanga boldly broke the funk band set up of the show, to play a relaxing yet exciting solo on a series of Caribbean membrane drums.

Ssewakiryanga’s conga playing is perhaps one example of the various art forms which have been repatriated and carefully molded to include local vocabulary. He had a very fascinating story about how Rico (the Latin American conga player in Qwela Band) told him that he’d keenly observed that on the congas, James is “playing Latino stuff but at some point you are in Africa.”

Just like the likembé (the thumb piano aka kalimba or mbira) players of the Congolese band Konono No. 1 — who managed to amplify the local instruments using locally made electric amps — James Ssewakiryanga removed the tough desert cowhide on the congas, and used a much softer hide from local calves. This produced a refined tonality, meaning he could alter the rhythm and tonality of the Latin American conga players.

“It is a shame that Ugandans think we are local. There are companies in Europe which are making koras with nylon strings,” James added.

From the Percussion Experience at the Lions Bar Sheraton Hotel, Kampala

Funky grooves

Looking at the other side of the show, which presented a complex mixture of funk jazz and R&B with an African twist, the combination of Roy Kasika on jazz drums and Abraham Sembatya on bass, plus Trevor Muhumuza on keyboard could fulfill any R&B-phile’s dream concert. Their timing was spontaneous, and they had a good feeling for the funky grooves which define the genre.

On the second tune in the set, whose name was said to be untitled — as most of the songs were — Abraham played an introduction on bass without the drums that accentuated the two-beat funk style. Roy Kasika came in full swing joining the bass player, carrying a heavyweight’s punch.

But the real gist was an exchange between the DJ Twonjex and Ssewakiryanga where comedy transpired.

When the band had settled into a steady rhythm, the DJ started to scratch, making sounds which were otherworldly. He got everyone so amused by his approach that James started to play hip-hop on the congas.

Scratching is a “DJ technique used to produce distinct sounds by moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable”. It also involves the slowing down of voice tracks and using alternative means to reproduce vocal sounds with varying pitches. These sounds have been incorporated into the art of beatboxing.

After playing a few tunes, Roy Kasika, sub-MC and drummer, called out the beatboxers, Felix Lutakome and Moze (Moses Mukalazi) to the stage. Unlike the well-known musicians on stage, these were relatively underground personalities who this particular audience knew little or nothing about. Like Qreas-Emmy they had broken through with this crowd, almost by chance.

Both beatboxers produced a dazzling array of sounds, some recognizable and others incognito. Felix made himself a human robot of some kind, producing both the solo and accompaniment for his performance. Both vocalized an uninterrupted series of scratch sounds and throaty growls.

From the Percussion Experience at the Lions Bar Sheraton Hotel, Kampala

Spiritual ceremonies

When I asked about the relationship between the human voice and the art of beatboxing, Moze told the story of a doctor who came up to him after a show and told him, “Your lungs work very well.” For the medical doctor, Moze was a representative of a biological system of perfect respiratory health.

Felix mentioned that beatboxing is something old, and in East Africa it has often been used during spiritual ceremonies.

However, as soon as their solo performance came to an end — and as Moze signaled to the bass player with a steady R&B pulse — it was much to our chagrin that Abraham failed to pick up the beat.

Later, when I asked Moze, he said that the bass player had done it impeccably in rehearsal. But, what was all this stage fright? Were these not the very virtuosic musicians that were regarded Uganda’s finest band? How difficult was it to play jazz with hip-hop musicians? The funk band was unable to play hip-hop, even when the beatboxers had given them a steady beat.

And yet some of the finest hip-hop has been produced by jazz musicians, like master arranger Quincy Jones, trumpeter and composer Donald Byrd, bassist and producer Marcus Miller, and lately jazz trumpet prodigy Roy Hargrove on music produced by the late hip-hop producer J Dilla.

What was it with this band set up that failed to work?

From the Percussion Experience at the Lions Bar Sheraton Hotel, Kampala

The invincible hero

The show had started with a brilliant composition by James Ssewakiryanga, titled Anamwengaana anaavaawa, a story of a very powerful man in the village who is so strong that no one has managed to beat him in a fight. The song asks, where will the man who will defeat him come from?

As he explained this, James stood arms held firmly in his waist, throwing his dreadlocks back with a swipe every once in a while. His physic seemed much like the man in the story, but to my surprise, the invincible character was inspired by his father. He narrated that as a child, he “believed that no one will beat my father.” When I asked him if this was still true today, he nodded his head.

In the first song that the band played, James had introduced an accented rhythm on the congas that was pleasant to hear even before the keyboard, bass, guitar and drums came in. After the introduction, the funk band tried very hard to sway James into a different direction, but they ultimately failed. He had indeed become the invincible hero from his story.

There’s something about how people come off the stage with cold hands, and with regrets. These are things that the audience is never privy to. The audience never finds out if some band members are going to be yelled at for leading the band in another direction; if the keyboard player secretly wishes he could be heard better by them; if the bass player played too long and made the stage his dressing room; if the rappers and beatboxers felt that the band did not play with them, but rather played against them. This remains hidden.

Serubiri Moses has been published in The New Vision reviewing live music. As a poet, he is featured on the pan African website, Badilisha Poetry Exchange.

All photos by courtesy of Facebook-page of Tha Rawfam except where stated.

Written by Ishta Nandi

Until last week the only thing post-modernism seemed to have given me, a Generation Y’er, was the often resigned conclusion, “After all, we’re all the same, deep down.”

Then I went to an exhibition of drawings and photographs by Rumanzi Canon and photographs by Andrea Stultiens at the Makerere Art Gallery titled Sketching a Civilisation. I had first heard of these two artists from the online photo archive they created, History in Progress Uganda, which features pictures from and about Uganda as old as circa 1878.

Photographs from “Sketching a Civilisation” by Andreas Stultiens and Canon Rumanzi, exhibited at Makerere Art Gallery, April 2013.

Images tell us where we are and what we’re doing, they show us us. Kind of like the technology that helped me find my way to the Sketching a Civilisation opening after I got lost within Makerere University main campus. An app I downloaded between the main gate and the library — impatient as I were to explore what the past was like, what people looked like back then, what Canon thought of how people look today.

Although, why none of the 10-plus students I asked for directions knew where the Gallery was might also be worth exploration, perhaps in the grander schema of quality education for posterity’s overtly imaged minds.

What is this guy saying?

I entered when Andrea was talking about how she came to Uganda to visit and ended up staying to curate old photos starting with one man’s private collection (one Mr. Kaddu Wasswa, who was also in attendance). Her calm, gentle voice divulged none of the obsessive drive it obviously took for her to put together such a remarkable collection.

Or maybe I failed to pick up on it because my concentration was marred by the huge drawing of AK-47s and a bloody sword protruding from what looked like a red-rimmed eye in between two spread thighs.

I was drawn to it. What is this guy saying? What does he mean? Is this some FGM thing? I hate when people feel like they have to choose a cause and they choose FGM. I hope there aren’t more. There weren’t though.

Examining the other Canon drawings surrounding it, I saw an armless woman made of blue lines sitting in what looked like a wave of her own blood. She had no discernible facial expression, so it must have been the way she sat — back arched slightly forward, hips turned away from the viewer while she faced us — that gave me the impression she had just been caught in a private moment.

My stare was intruding, and it made me look away for a second, before pulling out my phone to snap a picture because, how else was I going to tell people about the drawing I had seen which felt shy when people looked at it, and how if it had been for sale and I’d have bought it to hang above my toilet?

Detail of drawings “What a torrent of serious drawings!” by Canon Rumanzi, exhibited at Makerere Art Gallery, April 2013.

Life and work depicted 100 yrs ago

“I hate the way these pictures portray blacks,” one girl was telling her companion, a fellow MUK student.

Andrea had printed a book called The Baganda at Home which The Religious Tract Society first published back in 1908. Subtitled With 100 Pictures of Life and Work in Uganda, it had pictures from all over Uganda, Kenya and Congo of indigenous people interacting with colonialists, traders and missionaries. Dressing like them, learning from them, hunting with them, working for them, eating with them, showing off for them and posing for them.

Detail of photo “Sketching a Civilisation” by Andreas Stultiens and Canon Rumanzi, exhibited at Makerere Art Gallery, April 2013.

I couldn’t help it, “What do you hate about it?”

“It just makes me feel uuuaarrrrh,” she visibly shuddered.

I wanted to tell her that maybe her feelings had nothing to do with what the lens portrayed. That perhaps pictures reflect the context in which they are viewed, more than the subjects they substantiate.

But then I thought of Canon’s drawings and couldn’t. If pictures make us reflect on us, then the discomfort I felt looking at how Canon drew weaponry-fused female genitalia might mean something like I am bitter about all the people my sexuality has ever hurt.

The pictures from the first decade of the 20^th century though? I loved! I scanned the faces of Masai warriors from over a thousand years ago for some synchronistic signifier of their descendants beyond dress. I physically felt the overbearing presence of a Kabaka in his regalia; these were their gifts to me.

I wanted to meet these people’s great-great-great-grandchildren and tell them about their ancestors; how they lived and what they believed and of their pride and their infamy, and my disillusionment when I met them, in a picture, and they told me about it all with their eyes.

Detail of photo “Urban Unkindness; People” by Andreas Stultiens and Canon Rumanzi, exhibited at Makerere Art Gallery, April 2013.

Sense of belonging

The spectacle of costumes and our rejection of the narrative of subservient Africans — these help us belong.

The Sketching a Civilisation images are about more than belonging though. Andrea and Canon use their lenses and imaginations to capture hundreds of strangers, objects and situations. Showcasing the desires, the loss, the dreams, and the deepest longings of people unfamiliar to you, or maybe some that are?

Andrea had printed out two volumes of all the pictures that couldn’t fit on the walls, and I saw some kids I thought I recognized in one of them. Reading the caption, it was them, it had to be. All grown up, but it was them. Remembering them, and who I had been when I knew them, was emotional for me, and I told Andrea I knew the kids in some of her pictures. She remembered photographing them.

“It’s always interesting to me how a picture can say different things to different people, depending on who is looking at it,” she told me.

Detail of photo “Urban Unkindness; People” by Andreas Stultiens and Canon Rumanzi, exhibited at Makerere Art Gallery, April 2013.

Detail of photo “Urban Unkindness; People” by Andreas Stultiens and Canon Rumanzi, exhibited at Makerere Art Gallery, April 2013.

Your other half is gone

Also on display was a man holding up a picture of his family taken in the 1930s. Everyone in that picture is dead now except for him. He was born a twin, but his twin brother had passed away shortly after it was taken. His parents, auntie, uncle and cousin had eventually followed.

I looked at the woman holding her little baby knowing he wouldn’t make it into adulthood, and the otherwise commonplace domestic sight was ghastly. Your other half is gone. You are alone and your other half is gone. I thought of the survivor, Fred Mutebi, and suddenly felt ashamed of myself for being so moved by this infant’s death and yet there were genocide memorials going on all around me (on the internet) which I hadn’t given this consideration.

Why should I feel worse over one stranger’s untimely and unnatural death than another’s?

Well, if one was under orchestrated and completely preventable circumstances, then perhaps the more people who are made to feel that it is bad or wrong, the less chance there is that it will happen again?

Images make the pain of death real; pictures of survivors holding up pictures of victims force a confluence between the two and the event that forever split them into the identifiers ‘survivor’ and ‘victim.’

Detail of photo “The Last Person Alive” by Andreas Stultiens with Fred Mutebi, exhibited at Makerere Art Gallery, April 2013.

Abusive drawings again

I was examining a drawing of what looked like someone bending over to hands holding up money when Anita, a first year art student, introduced herself to me and proceeded to tell me, “I don’t like this guy’s drawings.”

“Why?”

“They’re abusive.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at them, they’re so rude.”

I smiled, “Yeah, I found the one at the entrance offensive too, the one with the guns? Personally, I think maybe he hates women?”

She nodded, “Yeah. Like this Congolese painter we learned about in class, he used to paint women’s bodies in not very nice ways. People who study his work say he also didn’t like women.”

When I finally found Canon, I asked him what he thought of people finding his drawings abusive, or offensive. He laughed.

“You know, when I did those drawings, I think it was out of audacity. I wanted to talk like I knew everything, from A to Z, yet in reality maybe I only knew A up to C? Maybe to shock people, maybe because I believed I understood more about the world, but it was really audacity. Now, though, I’ve moved on from that, from recognizable figures. At the moment I’m experimenting with shapes and colors.”

I almost burst out laughing, but didn’t want to hurt his sensibilities, so I smiled instead, realizing that sketching is just that … sketching.

Graphic records of unfinished ideas

Civilisations claim to be immutable, grandly set in stone and inescapable, but those pictures colonialists took of how they saw Uganda and these people Andrea’s and Canon’s cameras showed me, are graphic records of unfinished ideas.

The very images themselves are still under construction — as rapidly as a freehand drawing — because each time someone sees one, s/he will add something, omit another thing, and form a memory that they will continue to work on in their minds.

This is how we are all not the same. We don’t even see the same thing when looking at the same picture.

Detail of photo “Posers” by Canon Rumanzi, exhibited at Makerere Art Gallery, April 2013.

Ishta Nandi is a communications professional from Kampala. She enjoys going to art events and writing about them.

Unfortunately, this has exposed their largely Western aspirations, creating the daunting questions such as: Who is the audience on Twitter? Which culture does one produce for? And, is it possible to produce a cultural following on Twitter?

Written by Serubiri Moses

These musicians, along with a few others like Jackie Chandiru and Juliana Kanyomozi, are quite different from those in the dancehall phenomenon that has virtually destroyed Uganda’s music industry with its failure to develop any original meaning for Jamaican dancehall in Uganda’s context—in the same way that reggae did through the music of Lucky Dube.

Instead, they echo a cultural utopia that occurred during the 1990s on Wilson Rd in downtown Kampala, characterized by fashion, music, film and poetry that drew specific influences from American 1990s rap/R&B (such as Blackstreet, Junior M.A.F.I.A, Boyz II Men and the neo soul musicians), most of whom were located in Brooklyn, New York.

However, I would like to point out that it would be virtually impossible to identify, or even develop, such an American culture in Uganda, had it not been for the close curatorial skills of Sanyu and Capital FM’s radio Djs. They made very specific choices as to which culture and which music they produced on the radio, leading to the growth of an African styled harlem on Wilson Rd of 1999.

This movement produced several current poetry and music stars such as Xenson, Navio, Juliana Kanyomozi and Iryn Namubiru who reflect such influences in their music to date. Have one look at the new album cover on which a sternly looking Xenson wears a leopard print suuka,  puts a very clever spin on the mink fur coats that have become emblematic of Notorious B.I.G (another 1990s Brooklyn rapper).

A growing Afropop culture on Twitter

As evidence of a growing Afropop culture on Twitter, all the musicians that I have mentioned above have a large following on the social media website. The Mith has 4,499 followers, while Lillian Mbabazi’s are 5,900; Radio & Weasel’s 3,420; Keko’s 14,961; Navio’s 8,393 and Maurice Kirya’s 12,107.

Evidence of this culture on a continental level is on The Afribiz Chart, a website which curates artists such as Nigerians Tiwa Savage, Banky W and 2Face Ibidia, all of whom have had contact with 1990s American R&B. Ugandan duo Moze Radio & Weasel were placed at No. 2 on this week’s chart in the company of Banky W and 2Face at No. 3 and No. 1 respectively.

The Afribiz Chart considers artist presence on social media including Twitter, Facebook and Youtube as well as digital sales. It also markets itself as ”Africa’s #1 official music chart”.

The Twitter sense of bridging the gap between artist and listener is what Maurice Kirya and other musicians alike are aiming for. However, it is not a completely new phenomenon, because it was part of the cultural hub of Wilson Road in the 1990s through fashion, modeling, music and film.On any given day, you could walk down that street and see fashion that you had seen in the music videos of Jennifer Lopez, TLC, Jay-Z and Blackstreet on a TV Show like Jam Agenda. It was as if the models on the street like Eva Mbabazi had jumped straight out of a music video on TV and had come to life.

It was only logical for Sanyu FM to produce the R&B culture Bash in 2001 at Munyonyo Resort, because they had been the first radio station to play the R&B produced by Ugandan musicians like Steve Jean and I-Jay. This is what Twitter has substituted in the form of allowing musicians to debut content via mp3 away from the radio and getting a really personal bird’s eye view on the life of a Ugandan pop star.

A day in the life of a star

Twitter has become a platform on which Ugandan musicians can brand themselves before the audience. They can talk about what they wear, what they eat, where they have their coffee, where they hang out on the weekends, and even share gossip before media tabloids issue melodramatic news stories of the same content.

However, I wonder how a single musician can create a whole culture on their own? What is known as a brand is simply a particular type or kind of something.

If a musician like Maurice Kirya can define the specifics about the culture he produces, then it is easier for his followers to accept his music.

For example, Mr. Kirya will post something such as:

And the full post in the link:

This is, in all purity, only about the proximity of musician and music fan. What the music fan would not be able to read about on a blog (I do not know of any blogger or journalist who would ask if Mr. Kirya makes music while making an omelet), he would be able to find out from his Twitter.

The purpose of this in terms of producing culture, is that the follower would think that Mr. Kirya’s music is, to use an unavoidable term, “so cool” because it comes about while Kirya makes his breakfast omelette. It has nothing to do with the fan, but has everything to do with the musician’s brand and producing culture.

Branding their music

In close reference to 1990s Wilson Rd, one of the only reasons musicians, radio DJs and socialites walked down that street was in order to be seen: To be seen flirting with an interesting character; to be seen wearing a kind of shoe, perhaps a designer product from America; to be seen driving a big bike. It was all part of branding their music.

It was the moral equivalent of big brand advertising in magazines by promoters, showing high gloss photoshopped imagery of the musicians. It was the equivalent of producing and creating a public image, and more importantly associating that image with a specific culture.

The problem with photoshopping celebrities in the magazines is that they do not look like this in person. Many musicians have fallen in the trap of living up to how music promoters have represented them.

With Twitter, it is much easier to portray yourself, as Maurice has done with this particular photo:

It is important to note that this wardrobe has probably been selected by Kirya himself and not some magazine editor. It is also worth knowing that the fans who will read the tweet have probably listened to his music. This is definitely effective branding because they will quickly associate the image with Kirya’s music.

For the most popular R&B Afropop musician online, Tiwa Savage, the following tweet will directly impact on how her music is experienced to all her 254,000+ followers. And yet, one cannot mistake the American influence of the words “diet” and “cupcakes”. But when a Nigerian or Kenyan music fan looks at this tweet, they will closely connect Tiwa with the likes of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie who are notorious in the American tabloids for outrageously strange diets.

However, the following image posted by Mr. Kirya makes way for a very interesting conversation. How many of his followers would associate his “Mwooyo” music with a vegan diet?

I think that we have become so accustomed to imagery in the media that these pictures, though very distant, make us want to closely fabricate the reality inside them. For a music fan, it is not mandatory, but has become the norm, to dress like a musician one follows by looking at their fashion in magazine spreads, on CD covers and on the Grammy red carpet for example.

It is not always considered that the images pushed out by celebrities actually have a strong impact on their audience. So the question is, what if this reality cannot be recreated by the audience?

Being role models

This creates a definite problem. Just as Justin Bieber tweets about how his relationship with his “beliebers” is “direct” and can’t be broken, it is not always possible for the “beliebers” to measure up with Justin Bieber’s lifestyle, especially if it has been dictated by a brand manager. Because they are indeed “beliebers”, they will often copy his dress style and more.

However, when the same problem is attributed to a Ugandan audience, and Mr. Kirya is asking them to eat broccoli in addition to counting calories, isn’t it going too far?

I remember how in one very famous YouTube video from 2007, a fan of Britney Spears called Chris Crocker cried bitter tears yelling out for news media to “leave Britney alone”. That video was extremely scary, because it assumed that Crocker was experiencing the same reality as Britney Spears, and could almost “feel” what she felt when the tabloids would talk about her weight issues or her career.

Though it is all well and good to be one’s own brand manager and to generate a cultural following on Twitter, what happens when the audience is misled into believing that a vegan diet is a very normal way of living —and the proof is given in pictures of broccoli and carrots?

I personally think it is a morally wrong choice for music branding, as it falsifies the reality in which both musician and music fan is living in. In Uganda, we do not have an overwhelming number of obese children because high protein food is available everywhere, and fast food chips and burgers are still too costly to be easily afforded by the working class. Vegan diets should also be overseen by highly paid health professional which many Ugandans cannot indeed afford.

The American influence on Ugandan music and music brands shows through such moral displays on Twitter. Perhaps too deeply. As much as personal initiatives via social media to effect music branding are quite effective, it is in the best interest of the public to retain moral authority to represent an attainable reality.

In this photograph of Zari, another artist of the R&B Afropop camp, this unattainable reality becomes slightly hilarious or perhaps even obscene. Here, the musician attempts to throw off her fans. It is very unlikely that the few Ugandans who can afford Lambourghini’s listen to Zari’s music. In this portrait we can see clearly that majority of Uganda’s elite (for lack of a better term) aspire for the West, and hardly pay attention to Uganda itself.

Still counting

In order to show a clearer picture of the influence that Ugandan musicians can have on Twitter, I look at the Twitter Counter Website, looking at the most followed persons within the world and Africa. Twitter Counter which makes lists of the most followed in a Global Top 100, informs that Justin Bieber is the No. 1 most followed account with 36,236,539 million followers. Barack Obama is only No. 5 on that list. This an interesting observation when judging which culture these two social figures produce.

Most Ugandans and Kenyans actually follow news media houses NTV and NTV Uganda, the latter which has 41,219 followers on Twitter. This perhaps explains the audience as not paying enough attention to musicians, and therefore Mr. Kirya can get away with tweeting about broccoli, vegan diets and counting calories. It just does not reflect Ugandans’ political state of mind, and can easily be ignored.

South Africa reflects a different framework because the second most followed Twitter account in Pretoria, according to Twitter Counter, is Trevor Noah, a comedian described as the South African Michael Jackson, with 744,345 followers. Such figures prove that South Africans do take comedy seriously enough, considering that President Zuma comes only later in the Top 10.

It would seem that South Africans in Pretoria have a balance between culture and politics looking at their Top 10 most followed personalities on Twitter.

In comparison to Ugandans who follow NTV most, it shows that Ugandan society consumes more media and politics and therefore is less commercial. This is false because, Uganda is one of the fastest growing economies owing to growing capitalism within the country. Proof of this is the media tabloids such as Red Pepper who constantly report about politician’s houses, cars and lovers because they know that the society consumes that too.

It is out in the open World Wide Web, past the barriers of newsprint media journalism or indeed TV music shows, that Ugandan musicians can really expose how truly American they aspire to become. However, owing to the morality of music branding, I wonder if this can be a culture which the Ugandan audience can keep up with. For example, in musician Zari’s case, there are only a handful of Ugandans who would spend money on a Lambourghini. The cars are not real in Ugandan society and can only be watched from a distance, in quiet admiration by the majority.

Losing out to the East and the West

When I turn back to Wilson Rd, it has become completely lost to the dominating Chinese market downtown with competing malls 10 times the size of the original Pioneer Mall. These Chinese markets do not care for high-priced American merchandise, and as a result China has set the lifestyle trends within Kampala itself. Wilson Rd, used to be a kind of fashion walk with Kabindi fashions at one end and club DV8 at the other, with several malls in-between that distributed American fashion, music, movies and magazines.

While I admire how the curating of radio stations like Sanyu FM eventually provided the culture on which many of the Wilson Rd activities were based, I appreciate how Twitter has allowed for artists, musicians and performers to create their own branding and their own cultural following via the direct link between musician and music fan.

However, it remains that many Ugandan musicians on Twitter or on the radio continue to produce material driven at responding to the West and Western art forms. Their tweets, ads, and promos, if not communicating directly with the West, are communicating to the West within Uganda itself.

I cannot help but feel that this new Afropop culture derived from American R&B is something that speaks only to the West and completely ignores Africa itself.

Serubiri Moses has been published in The New Vision reviewing live music. As a poet, he is featured on the pan African website, Badilisha Poetry Exchange.

Backed with the motto “Where things are as they could be” the artist is the performer in this city—the public space—where he’s conveying a particular message depending on the theme he has chosen for the morning.

His performances are interactive, intelligent and creative.

Written by Dominic Muwanguzi

In one moment he picks up the drum and begins to drum as he sings along. In the next couple of minutes, he hops on to an old bicycle and rides along this section of the highway. Occasionally he will interrupt his ride to give a helping hand to a vendor laden with merchandise on his bicycle by means of a push or ride the bicycle himself. He will then return to canvas and scribble something on canvas with his paint brush.

All this happens in the chill of the morning and takes no more than a couple of hours, as the busy morning traffic snakes through the junction of Kampala International School Uganda, Old Kira Road.

Collin Sekajugo’s Secolliville Project in Kampala 2013.

Involvement and participation by the public

This performance in public space by visual artist Collin Sekajugo is an extraordinary presentation, which not only attracts the attention of the public using the road at this time of the morning—many will stop and stare—but also is an opportunity for the artist to interact both aesthetically and intellectually with the random audience.

“I want to bring (my) art to the public and see how they respond to it,” says the vocal artist when pressed with the question why he carries out these performances.

Though these performances touch our senses and attract the public’s attention, it can be argued that the artist probably faces a certain degree of challenge to contextualize them to a particular theme or the general thesis of his art per se.

Collin Sekajugo’s Secolliville Project in Kampala 2013.

This aspect is facilitated by partly the random happening of events on the streets, which are normally not planned for; for example, interruption by the morning rains, the notorious traffic jam that may impede a fluid performance, and total ignorance of what he’s doing by a certain section of the public.

Perhaps as a means of salvaging his public performances from such unfortunate experiences, the artist plants a banner/poster in the background like a manifesto used to interpret a particular artwork in an art gallery .

The poster as an independent artwork

The poster has the following wording:

“God created People and People created classes! There are attractive ones and the different; the smart ones and the dumb; the privileged ones and the disadvantaged; the fortunate ones and the unlucky. I am Creative, And you are?”

The wording on the poster, more like curatorial notes, are carefully chosen to involve the public in what he’s doing on the street. It is interesting that each one of us belongs to a particular “class” and here it is upon the public to identify which class or ability they possess and represent.

“These words touch the audience (public). They keep thinking about them the whole day as they go about their duties,” Collin says.

In essence, the poster itself becomes another artwork in public space, because it actively involves the public intellectually in the performances being executed by the artist.

Collin Sekajugo’s Secolliville Project in Kampala 2013.

Suspect to egocentrism

Nonetheless, for some people the poster may be just another object promoting a product like many others on street corners and billboards. The possibility of it being ignored and sometimes not understood is quite probable. Suffice to say, some critics may regard it as egocentric and pompous.

And if so, is Secolliville an egoistic project?

The artist dismisses such claims by saying that the project finds its relevance in day-to-day activities:

“I am exploring and working with things people on the street can identify with. I ride the bicycle— a symbol of simplicity and mobility—which everyone can relate to. I paint the word coffee on canvas, and everyone is familiar with coffee—either as something they drink in the morning or as a cash crop for the economy.”

The artist’s other activities in his performances include selling merchandise in the market in Zambia, where he also performs once in a while.

Collin Sekajugo’s Secolliville Project in Zambia 2013.

Working like this, helps the artist to touch base with the local community, something he is most known for with his community-based art projects in Rwanda (Ivuka, which means re-birth in Kinyarwanda) and in Masaka (Weaver Bird Community of the Arts).

This aspect of community involvement and participation has the potential to alienate the syndrome of classism in the arts and also give the artist a thrust to conceptual art.

Thinking regular themes

Though still fairly unexplored on the local art scene, conceptual art is the type of art that can help artists reach international standards and markets, like the case is with West African art.

Nevertheless, the task is identifying themes that can directly impact the local community. In the context of Sekajugo’s performances, the artist is smart enough to work with themes that can easily trigger the reaction of the community he is working in:

“I work with themes people can relate with. My last performance was about presentation. We are what we are because of the way we present ourselves to the public. I was riding that old bicycle because I wanted to show people out there that I am an ordinary person, even if I am an artist.”

Collin Sekajugo’s Secolliville Project in Kampala 2013.

The notion of identifying regular themes can create a clientele for the artist with the city planning authority. With the fray of gazetting certain spots in Kampala for public space and erecting artworks there, the artist becomes very useful to this end.

More so, the tradition of erecting permanent abstract artworks (like the Independence Monument on Speke Road, The Stride Monument marking the Commonwealth Head of Government Summit in Kampala in 2007, and the 50^th Anniversary Monument at the Airstrip in Kololo) which can be susceptible to vandalism, is no longer fashionable with the city that keeps on changing its landscape day in and out.

Here the advent and use of non-permanent artwork, like the case is with Sekajugo’s performance in public space, comes in handy. The latter could safeguard against cases of vandalism and also the caprice nature of the city planning authorities.

Exemplary opportunities for artists

Secolliville is a metaphor to innovation and creativity which artists across the arts spectrum in Uganda can borrow, either to improve their art or to continue to be relevant to the community.

Beneath its creation, the artist wants to extend the arts to the average person living on the streets, hence demystifying the notion that art should live in galleries, theatres and museums, or only to be afforded by the affluent and expatriate community living in Uganda.

His performance taps into local culture, something a vendor from Nakesero or Kiseka Market can easily identify with.

Collin Sekajugo’s Secolliville Project in Zambia 2013.

This is a huge departure from conventionally exhibited paintings, which often are abstract and communicate very little to the average person. A result of this gallery-only tradition, is that the tourist and expatriate will buy it and ship it to his home country, leaving us with nothing to document our political and cultural heritage.

The reverse of this trend, can yield a vibrant arts scene and raise the bar of the Ugandan art on the international market. But this can only happen if artists begin to act visionary and stop thinking that good art is only art which brings them thousands of dollars from the expatriates and tourists.

Dominic Muwanguzi is a freelance art journalist with a strong dedication to uplifting the visual arts in Uganda.

All images by courtesy of artist’s Facebook-page.

Written by Lutakome ‘Felix’ Fidelis

Recently I had a very interesting discourse with Nsubuga Nelson, also known as St. Nelly-sade (quite a long name—rappers usually have one instead of three). It was a lengthy one, mostly about the consummate artiste’s rap career.

Our conversation constantly fluctuated within the different levels of developments he has encountered as a hip-hop artiste, along the path to his craft mastery and his role in Uganda’s hip-hop scene.

St. Nelly-sade. Photo by courtesy of the artist.

Nelly-sade’s paradoxical character is quite intriguing: The contrasting mixture of his extremely humble disposition when outside the music studio booth and his deliberate aggressiveness and lyrical assertiveness displayed over a hip-hop beat, rather renders him a complex, but simple, remarkable person. And he houses a lot of surprises that he only seem to release on special occasions.

However, what really beat my mind was the mere fact that, when you’re talking to him, he can’t really elaborate on even half of the things that he raps about in some of his songs. Perhaps it was me who kept my expectations too high, but before the interview I had really anticipated some really deep conversation from the brother. But—tout ensemble—it was really good chatting with him.

I have known emcees to be very talkative (meaningful talk, of course) people, especially if they’re conscious emcees. To express some deep rhetoric even outside the booth, and yeah, I personally feel it shouldn’t stop in the studio. A lot of emcees do/say things differently outside the booth, but I feel if you choose to call yourself something it also usually makes a lot of sense to live it. And that also brings draws out hip-hop’s 5^th element (knowledge) in you. I’m just saying.

An underground rapper

I asked him about how and when he got into rapping: “I started rapping in 2004 when I was still in S.2, so it’s like now 8, 9 years.”

To which he added, after I asked him if he considers himself mainstream or underground, that:

“I’m an underground artist, because I don’t usually play on the local stations, I don’t do music shows. Those are some of the elements of an underground artist. Once in a while, you can hear my music on one or two radio stations, but people usually get my music from the internet.”

The brother apparently embraces his underground status—during the interview he assured me that he is proud to be underground.

And that reminds me; I really don’t understand if being underground is cooler than being exposed or whatever the antonym is. I mean … for me the confusion comes from rappers self-proclaiming how underground they are, with a lot pride, and then come round and complain about radios refusing to play their music.

If you want your message to be disseminated to a wider audience, how do you expect that to happen, if you just sit back and embrace your musical status?

I mean, it fully makes sense if that’s what a rapper chooses, but—to all rappers out there—don’t call yourself underground just because the media is not yet agreeably receptive to your work. Call yourself underground because that’s what you want and because you are confident about your skills.

And personally, I think you should leave it to the audience to name your category.

A reincarnation of your grandfather’s wisdom

St. Nelly-sade. Photo by courtesy of the artist.

Today, when you listen to him rap, you notice experience, maturity and deep subtlety. He is a prolifically consummate lyricist, thinker and poet who, from the dexterity and novelty that he displays, is actually among the short list of Ugandan rappers.

“I didn’t just wake up and started rapping, but I loved hip-hop even when I was young. I used to listen to people like Tupac, Nas, Scarface and Dilated people, so (with those people) I got an inspiration to start rapping.

On the other side, I was also touched by the Tanzanian hip-hop industry. Those days, in early 2000, I started listening to people like Juma Nature, Professor Jay and the likes of A.Y. So that also added some inspiration towards my career.”

His distinctness is mainly plunged by his artistic Afro-centrism. And style—Luga flo—which is elementarily centered in his native language, in which he employs complex Luganda syntax and diction characteristic of the traditional usage of the language and uses it to deliver his gospel.

So when you’re listening to him the feeling and mood evoked are a bit nostalgic, because they are similar, or so, to what you would experience and feel while listening to an elder who is enthusiastically proud of his native culture and traditions.

In other words, it’s like a reincarnation of your grandfather’s mind or wisdom—or something of that sort. But despite of all this, he never loses his impulses of wanting to impart constructive knowledge and entertain at the same time.

Social values and moral behaviour

Among other songs on his latest album, Tula twogele says it all. The way he comes across on this opus is a bit nativistic, but that’s also kind of what guarantees the qualities of one’s artistic identity and unparalleledness in Uganda’s hip-hop scene today. This exquisite opus is a self-proclamation of his extensive knowledge and comprehension on his native-cultural norms and values. Quite distinct, because that’s a dangerous stance to take, especially if you’re not really what you claim to be, like a lot of Ugandan novice mainstream commercial rap artists do nowadays. On this same track he also muses about the various social values and moral behaviours in everyday life.

His distinct traits have evoked a somewhat substantial stature for him in the Ugandan real hip-hop elite inner circle, that mainly involves real hip-hop artists and fans who strongly acknowledge and appreciate the true essence of rap music and hip-hop in general.

St. Nelly-sade. Photo by courtesy of the artist.

Yesteryear’s hustles and milestones

The track Nzijukira, which translates as “I remember”, is mainly retrospective; he chews over his personal history from the time he established himself as a rapper till present day.

Still on this track Nelly-sade lyrically gives you a ride through his yesteryear’s hustles and milestones, however, what not to miss is his subtle form of lyrical delivery and factual treat. It makes the song quite an impressive rhapsody, and also, due to its elemental portrayal of the recent average “Ugandan hip-hop/rap reality” and a bit of its “historical norms”, it denotes quite enough about the rap scene in Uganda. Its allegorical and allusive quality bespeaks a keen mind to be ascertained.

His brilliant usage and infusion of anecdotage makes the track appealing, not solely to the rappers and hip-hop fans but also to anyone who appreciates the art of storytelling. At the same time it does retain and convey homage towards some of Uganda’s long-established hip-hop veterans and up-and-coming novices.

The quality of the sounds on his latest album embodies some poetic elements of a typical real hip-hop opus, such as rhyme, metaphors, allegory, wordplay, allusion etc. Reason and purpose are evidently present behind his music, and they can be felt when one listens and internalizes the ideas, philosophy, enlightenment and reality that he projects to his audience.

A growing industry

I always like to hear people’s thoughts on Uganda hip-hop, so asked him in which direction he thought the industry will go:

“The scene is growing because right now people are appreciating even the underground voices. People (emcees) do different languages, and they’ve started to appreciate where they come from. A lot of native languages are coming on the scene—languages like Lusoga, Rukiga, Runyankole, Luganda—I mean, name them!”

He further alluded and contrasted Ugandan hip-hop music now with for instance 2005: “At that time people were only appreciating English; even Luganda could not get that enough radio airplay.”

He says things are changing to the better because “people are also representing Uganda internationally. It’s really dope”.

Indeed it is—but that change is also bilateral!

How? On one hand it does create more opportunities for more hip-hop artists in Uganda and stature for the scene, which is terrific. But on the other hand, it can also choke the same scene if the “international representatives” are keep getting it wrong and end up creating a fad instead.

My hypothesis, however, is that what Ugandan hip-hop needs to grow is not an “American feel”, as it is currently being adopted by many Ugandan rappers, but rather a “real hip-hop feel”. Period.

When I listen to the latest album of St. Nelly-sade, I can’t stop but muse that, by and by, future hip-hop critiques, collectors, practitioners, etc will reflect upon his music as a one of a kind archetype, and use it to school and inspire the coming hip-hop generations in Uganda.

Lutakome ‘Felix’ Fidelis is a Ugandan freelance writer who mainly writes about hip-hop culture. His major focus is to create awareness of underground hip-hop artists and events.

Written by Sophie Alal

Doreen Baingana, Chairperson at Femrite and moderator for the evening, hailed arts institutions as the mortar of arts in Uganda. WAZO, as an interactive platform, has become critically relevant, as last month’s discussion on censorship examined The River and the Mountain. Written by British playwright Beau Hopkins, it garnered state attention with controversial results. Shortly after, Angela Emurwon, the Ugandan Director of the same play and a regular at WAZO, won the BBC International Playwriting Competition for her play Sunflowers Behind a Dirty Fence.

Mr Kiwewa refrained from discussing the litanies of suffering causing artists to feel cynical, angry and frustrated. It was more useful to have a philosophical approach like Prof. Abdoulaye Ndoye, professor of art at the National School of Fine Arts Dakar. Prof. Abdoulaye argues that arts education is difficult because “the arts are thought of as just a hobby, an idea to replace a failed thought or pursuit of a career”.

The trade-off between universal education and quality education is difficult to place. But a first step would be to create parameters that make sense on a case by case basis. Arts are considered to fall within elite education, so it may be risky to assume that everyone wants to be like you.

Imagination, creation and connection

Bayimba Academy’s thematic approach combines “imagination, creation and connection”. It envisions an arts education which enriches learning in local communities that are ultimately connected to a global audience.

“In 2014, we hope that the instructors that we are training can pilot this in ten to twenty schools,” said Mr. Kiwewa.

Faisal Kiwewa at Wazo 9 at the Hub, Kampala, 12th March 2013.

Programmes like The Practical Musician, Creative Writing Workshop, Photography, Youth and Hip-Hop, Street Theatre, and the Creative Entrepreneurship Programme (being piloted this year), seek to deliver on Bayimba’s commitments to develop the arts in Uganda.

The presentation cited that creativity correlates to gains in maths, reading, cognitive ability, verbal skills and critical thinking, while arts education can improve motivation, concentration, confidence, and team work. Thus creating “better” citizens.

How to share knowledge

However, the interactive spaces in Uganda disguise moral ambiguities. People tend to want good quality, but are fearful of denouncing the mediocrity or tokenism on offer. Coherent ideas which could have served artists and the public, as well as the state and the individual, only get passed on through whispering campaigns.

Rebecca Nshugi was concerned that in our small circles around Kampala, we are mostly elitist and risked alienating the majority of Ugandans. She wanted to know how cultural differences would be appreciated, because we have different languages and traditions, and it affects the ways in which we share knowledge.

Beverley Nambozo, the founder of the Beverley Nambozo Poetry Award, recommended that we “use tools accessible to people”. And most importantly, she added, “get people to use the radio, get people who represent the region in an affable way”.

Amakula Kampala has shown leadership in using local languages. In their experience, independent films and documentaries from around the world are translated into local languages. Mr Nathan Kiwere, a programme manager at Amakula and an art historian, said that this creates awareness and engages communities to be more apt in gathering information. He further argued that the absence of documentation creates a missing link. He said that Giorgio Vasari, privately dedicated his life to documenting the career of Michelangelo. His writings still inform most of what we know today about the renaissance genius.

There were renewed calls for locals to take stewardship of their histories. “We need our own, not people coming from outside, to document our lives. We can talk and talk, but if there is no tangible outcome, then we will have wasted our time,” Mr. Kiwere concluded.

A complex relationship of caution and nuanced appreciation exists between donors and recipients of aid in the arts industry. The donor-driven discourse often rests on unpleasant stereotypes which the locals find this annoying.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie referred to them as incomplete stereotypes. Indigenous platforms are expected to present a more wholesome reification of local realities. While non-indigenous ones are beginning to be perceived as fronts for multinationals to engage locals through “hearts and minds campaigns” geared towards protecting their own economic interests.

Wazo 9 at the Hub, Kampala, 12th March 2013.

The role of cultural institutions

The independence of emergent cultural institutions across the continent was also examined. Tino Roselyn, who recently resigned as Programmes Assistant at Femrite, wanted to know how intrepid Bayimba was in allowing indigenous, local culture to thrive in spite of the machinations that the western world exerts on indigenous forms.

Mr Kiwewa argued that expertise that comes from outside is mostly to enhance local culture, not to impose. But past interventions have had mixed fortunes. He believes that phenomena like Making a Star killed music in post-conflict Northern Uganda:

“The NGOs needed to make a mark with peace messages, so they made stars based on the peace theme.”

These glamourised stars consequently got estranged from their fan base when the NGOs left: “They are now trying to recreate themselves,” argued Kiwewa.

Peace has returned

One can look at the chorus of Kuc Udugu Tua (Peace has returned to our homeland) by Obol Simpleman:

Kuc udugu tua

uribu wunu ching wu ujoni

dongo lobo Uganda wa

Peace has returned to our homeland

join your hands together people

to develop our Uganda

The dilemma to be local or go universal introduced an interesting segue on the interface between traditional instruments and modern music. Youth hardly appreciate authentic folk music. It seems contemporary sounds from the guitar, piano and synthesizer are more popular.

Joel Sebunjo, who is a kora and kalimba player and winner of the French government’s prestigious Visa Pour la Creation award, found it unfortunate that folk musicians are given little attention in Kampala:

“Samite Mulondo is big abroad. Often when I’m being interviewed in studios abroad, the background music is Samite. But here in Uganda, people hardly know him,” Mr Sebunjo said.

Yet up north, a sampling of music by Obol Simpleman, Bosmic Otim, Lady Fem Cee and Pretty B reveal sounds of nanga, adungu and rigi-rigi, all traditional instruments appropriated into the genre defining Lugo-flow and more contemporary Afropop that is so popular among the youth around Gulu. And this is not to claim that they are not up to scratch with hits from Kampala, Europe and North America. This return to traditions was seen in the brilliant success in 2012 of Lady Sharia featuring 2Pee in Lacoo ma Laging, translated as “A miserly man”.

Archiving African music

Siemens has set aside 4 million Euros to archive African music. It’s estimated that it will take 25 years to complete. Citing copyright issues, Mr Kiwewa said that Siemens’ database shall not be in the public domain; it will only be accessible for paying subscribers. The programme is currently running in Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar and Kenya.

Hyper-commercialisation is affecting bare necessities such as water, food, and knowledge. Currently there is a rush to commodify cultural resources amid unfettered capitalism and runaway inequality.

A challenge to all this digitization and codification is how to interpret the copyright regime in Uganda. The Copyright and Neighbouring Right Act, 2006 Sec. 5 protects literary, scientific and artistic work. The status of protection of audio-visual recordings still remains unclear due to lack of understanding of the trade-related aspects of intellectual property.

Something to think about is if Siemens and Bayimba will inform owners of these musical recordings that their property will be for sale at a profit once it’s out of their hands.

“We don’t even own our bodies”

Genuine fear exists that poor people, and future generations, may be locked out from sources of succour which inform their rhythms of life. For the tragedy of poor people is that they hardly have the luxury of documenting their lives in easily retrievable forms.

Harsh as these positions may sound, they are justified by a lamentable history of social, political and economic violence towards Africa and African culture. Whatever good that comes out is often marred by well-intentioned interventions but flawed results.

Reluctance to return stolen artifacts, continuous use of offensive tropes, like Black face in glossies, and inappropriate use of artifice with deep African connections illuminate where these ideas from. Communities in Africa have become weary of negotiating for the dignity of their own people.

Doreen gave her Global Afropolitan nod of approval when she said these intensely disturbing words: “We don’t even own our bodies”.

Poster design by Yuval Eschel. From the exhibition 100 Posters for the Right to Education, exhibited at Makerere Art Gallery 2011/12.

Two little boys balancing fruit baskets on their heads stepped into the courtyard. No one bought their beautiful yellow bogoya. However, one of them said something to his friend, and they both giggled and disappeared through the corridor.

Daudi Karungi, the proprietor of Afriart Gallery, requested writers to document artists at work. He was pleased when Faisal Kiwewa reminisced about the mural in The Hub’s backyard. “I don’t remember what was going on,” he confessed, “ it was lunchtime and a lot was going on.”

Using the example of Femrite, Ms Faridah Bagalaliwo, a lawyer and a poet replied that:

“Even if you wanted to write about something, the natural place to start is your place. But people are not open for critiquing. They are resistant due to the smallness of the community.”

She added that the role of criticism is to attribute value, but in small communities that want to have their cake and eat it too, it is difficult to appreciate and take genuine delight in the success of artists that people truly care about.

The weekly Readers Writers Club, which has birthed some of Uganda’s better known writers, has gradually degenerated into a mutual appreciation club. The club seems mostly concerned with religious or moral commentary rather than giving critique on the craft.

Ms Bagalaliwo was disturbed the previous day when an aspiring musician, who even attended The Festival of Womanhood in Nairobi, remarked that her poem about rape—Enough—was not real because: “Some women enjoy being raped.”

For his own sake, she ignored his dullness of the mind.

Wazo 9 at the Hub, Kampala, 12th March 2013.

Conclusions

Getting back to civility and success may call for attracting back literary matriarchs to burnish the level of intellectual rigour. And setting parameters for certain belligerent youth. Competition from other spaces like WAZO are also raising the stakes.

Mulling about poorly executed craft will only cause heartache. But an absence of nuanced discourse is more damaging to the quality of art being generated.

However, Culture Unlimited is an ongoing database bringing together arts practitioners from various disciplines. The audience welcomed it as an opportunity to network and support one another. Ms Nambozo said: “All the struggles that Bayimba goes through, other arts organisations also go through. We are happy to be part of Culture Unlimited.”

The ambient plants got a bruising, and the air was suffused by the odour of chives mint and basil, scattered about a little patch in the garden. The evening was a success.

Sophie Alal is a freelance journalist and a baker. Images by courtesy of Talking WAZO Facebook-page.

Next Edition of WAZO features Xenson Ssenkaba, April 2nd at the HUB, Kampala.

Written by Elizabeth Namakula

The general aims of the discussions, according to Mr. Muziri who chaired the first one, include:

• encouraging critical thinking in the visual arts,
• providing a place for artists to network,
• bringing new ideas and inspirations to Kampala,
• creating and building international and professional connections for Ugandan art,
• and eventually encouraging lifelong learning.

Artachat at 32º East, Kampala, 19 February 2013.

“We are trying to find a way to excite our public spaces. We are asking ourselves questions like ‘What kind of projects can we do?’ ‘Who is our audience?’ ‘How do we ensure that the projects we start have continuity?’ and ‘How can an artist enter this dialogue of art in the public space?’” Muziri said.

The idea is to have artists come together and drink from the sound wells of someone who has “been-there-done-that” and is still around. Someone who can inspire artists and listen to their issues and advise them accordingly.

Cultural memory

They needn’t have worried for Jimmy Ogonga fit the bill to perfection. In the words of Muziri as he introduced him:

“His work is from the deep recesses of historical and philosophical ideology and exists within an underrepresented, mostly misrepresented, afro-centric knowledge. He sets out to correct all these translations and representations of African contemporary art.”

But before he begun, a short video clip about the successfully held KLA ART 012 festival, in which twelve artists showcased in twelve locations, was played. The participating artists included Xenson, Bwambale Ivan Allan, Eria ‘Sane’ Nsubuga among others. It called for a little introspection, but after that the night belonged to Jimmy.

Jimmy Ogonga is an artist, producer, curator as well as a founder member of Nairobi Arts Trust / Centre for Contemporary Art in East Africa. His big challenge for the night was how to address this varied group of artists; some eager to listen to you, while others wore the expression “okay, here I am—impress me!”

How did you start when some of them hardly knew your work? Jimmy’s most famed work, by the way, is a project called Amnesia, done in Nairobi, which addresses the issues of historical and cultural memory.

The Amnesia project, by Jimmy Ogonga Nairobi Arts Trust.

He was undaunted by it all. Yet, seeking a smooth landing, he appealed to Pan-Africanism. He expressed a desire to imagine Africa as one place, one continent, one people. A place where there are no lines marked on paper, marked in books and the internet, lines that don’t really exist.

“We Africans are very interesting people. We have given the world so much, yet currently we are in a situation where we love being managed, we love people who do things for us. I wanted us to create our own space, where artists can come, sit down together and exchange ideas, articulate pressing issues, make publications, and write stuff that speak our own stories,” he explained.

Together with a couple of friends, Jimmy Ogonga set up the Nairobi Arts Trust to create their own space and pursue the practice of art independently.

Jimmy Ogonga visiting a local studio.

He reminisced regretfully on what it was like for Kenyan artists in the early 90s to share ideas with their counterparts in Uganda and vice-versa. The same was also true in Dar-es-Salaam with artists crossing over to Nairobi and Kampala.

“Why doesn’t that happen as much as it used to? Maybe we have discovered other frontiers in Europe and South Africa. The playground has become a little bit larger, and we have stopped looking next door and gone metropolitan.”

For Jimmy personally that didn’t stop him from seeking out Ugandan artists, and just last year, he worked with Afriart Gallery in a project which introduced him to Ugandan artists.

“I think the idea of cross-border activities, exchanges, conversations and travelling to where you want to work is extremely important.”

Public art and urban development

But how does this whole talk of cross-border art exchanges fit in with art in the public space?

“When I think about public art, what comes to mind is liberating the world of art by taking art out of the traditional white cube—ie. the galleries—and putting in it in the public sphere.”

According to him, to put art in the public spaces entails many things, especially in cities where in the past forty years Africans have embraced the rural to urban migration.

“When you think about it, the urban development changes everything. The style of building changes from round to linear and square architecture,” he observed.

Jimmy Ogonga at Artachat Kampala.

Also, cities are places of conflict. From crime to multiculturalism, there is a little bit of everything. It’s a place where people are always contesting for physical space, selling and buying, and navigating public transport.

Yet, rather than look at it as a bad thing, he pointed out that the beauty of multiculturalism—a byproduct of cities—brings people together. And when you show people art to reflect upon, you have created a platform to communicate in a deeper way than just using words.

“When you put art in a public place, you provide an opportunity for people to talk beyond ordinary conversation,” Jimmy emphasized.

He pointed at museums as a space where traditional art takes center stage. And most of it is really public art, not art hung on the wall in a wealthy person’s house. No artist put their name on it and it wasn’t pieces that were bought and sold.

“When we put art in a public space, we are trying to express a new-found freedom where we are saying: Art is not something that should be contained, whether in a room or a wall. You are putting it out there for the ordinary person to enjoy, perceive, imagine, articulate, take ownership of it, and be part of the production,” he said.

Order in the chaos

An image of the Kampala old taxi park was then presented, with the hope that everyone was familiar with the place. It was also to show how Africans have navigated their cities.

“It is absolutely chaotic, but at the same time, you see a certain repetition, a certain order in the chaos. I brought it out to show that if cities can be imagined and made, then they can be reimagined and remade. I want our young artists to take more proactive action in determining how our cities should look, function and interact,” he added.

A series of photographs of art from other parts of Africa like Cameroon, Kenya etc were produced with special emphasis on meaning.

“You have to look at these places and give them meaning. What does it mean to someone who passes by every day, or one who works there and has lived there all their life? If you are to make a public art project, what kind of meaning or provocative element would you plant there to make those people interact on a different level?

I would like to imagine the poetics of the city as well. What do you see when you look at a city?” he finished to applause.

The role of the local authorities

Later it was time to hear from a representative of the Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA), Alfred Okello from the Directorate of Physical Planning, Landscaping unit of KCCA.

Art in public space has to involve the local planning authorities, but the audience was dismayed to hear that as of today, KCCA has no exact policy in regards to public art. On the question of why, Alfred had to apologize:

“You realize that in many cases, art has been associated with music and song. Public art has fallen under the token of public health,” he said without making things any better.

Artachat at 32º East, Kampala, 19 February 2013.

“But I am here to let you know that the new KCCA is interested in the arts. We want our city to glow. We want to colour it. We are here to provide guidance on how to go about it. As you move through Kampala, walk with your eyes wide open. There is plenty of opportunity for public art which no one sees. Kampala is prone to traffic jam. I want the drivers to be looking at a piece of art, instead of contemplating how to maneuver through a pavement,” he continued.

After that, the discussion was opened to the audience. This session kicked off with questions, most of them directed at Alfred.

Bruno Ruganzu, an artist who incorporates recycling in his work, disagreed with Alfred on the issue of KCCA wanting to work with artists, citing an example where—under the umbrella of Uganda Visual Arts Society—they appealed for space in the city, but were turned down.

“When you come to us as artists, you need to speak one language, and then we at KCCA can offer our guidance. The city is big and there are many people who live there. How you handle the city is very important, because there are different tastes to cater for,” Alfred responded.

Discussions

Moses Serubiri, a student and a writer for Startjournal, disagreed with Jimmy Ogonga’s idea of intervention in planning cities:

Serubiri Moses at Artachat, 32º East, Kampala, 19 February 2013.

“You can’t just come out of nowhere and say you are going to condense fifty years of history in just one single art piece, and then demand space for it. Are you aware of the confusion and displacement you might cause some people?”

Alex Ahebwa of Bayimba Cultural Foundation was in complete doubt of KCCA’s commitment to offer space for public art:

“The space is simply not there. If they don’t even have a framework, how do you trust that they will work with you all the way as far as giving you space is concerned? There is so much politicking around for this to happen.”

More discussions continued after the tea break, but still the bone of contention was getting the authorities to work with artists. Jimmy kept emphasizing over and over again the beauty of diplomacy and tact in resolving such issues:

“It does take time, but mastering the use of diplomacy and helping the authorities see that you’re in fact helping them, goes a long way in resolving such issues, “ he concluded.

That was Artachat, discussion one, brace yourself for another one next month. The date is yet to be communicated. But it is worth the time, especially if you are an artist considering art in the public space.

Elizabeth Namakula is a freelance writer living in Kampala, Uganda. Her short story “A World of Our Own” was recently published in the Femrite-collection “World of Our Own”.

This article was originally written for and published at Artachat website. All images by courtesy of Artachat.

Written by Elizabeth Namakula

So for this one day in the year, March 8^th, one couldn’t help but wonder how art would be used to celebrate such an interesting phenomenon of the human race. Would it call for a sculpture of the woman in all her glory, a painting of her most-prized assets? Or how she embraces art in her day-to-day life to make it comfortable for herself and her loved ones?

Certainly for the international celebrations of the Women’s day at the Sheraton, the answer lay in this last one.

The theme of the festival was how independent is the Ugandan Woman? A retrospect of the past 50 years, present and future perspectives.

Celebrating 50 years of Independence at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Petra Behnsen.

There was a round open debate forum which tackled issues concerning women in health, agriculture, justice, education, and women in top management and business. This took up the better part of the morning.

The gardens swirled with tents of different organizations; Embassies and their partners, NGOs involved in women and banks. Action Aid, Fida Uganda, Concern for the Girl Child, Teenage Mothers Center, Bank of Africa, Alliance Francaise, and Living Earth Uganda were some of the participating organisations.

The pop-up shop

It was a relief to enter the area designated for art, rightfully named the pop-up shop. This was supposed to be a marketplace with designer products produced by women in Uganda. Although that didn’t deter some products like gold rings, necklaces etc, clearly not produced in Uganda, from being on sale.

Uganda ceramics by Vision for Africa, Grassroots Uganda and Maridadi were some of the shops open, selling items ranging from pillows and cushions made in Kitenge, aprons, basket handbags, bed spreads, and decoration items made out of bark cloth. The only thing missing were bikinis in Kitengi material.

The Pop-Up Shops at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Petra Behnsen.

The drawback to this exciting market place was the exorbitant prices charged, but that didn’t deter those that had come to spend. This was a women’s event and no woman would leave the venue without a coveted souvenir.

The crowd was mostly women, of all ages and colour; black and white and everything else in between. They leisurely strolled through the gardens, getting to whatever tent that struck their fancy, while the small children tagged along their mothers.

Parents had a kids zone marked out for them, but the little ones still clung to their mothers. There were a few men, mostly those that had come with their families, because as it turned out, it was a great day to bring one’s family along.

Food was also a central part of the festival. The Sheraton Hotel waiters were on hand to take one’s orders while for drinks, Redds went as far as giving whoever wanted a free drink referred to as ‘Redds Tasting Cocktail’.

Still on the subject of food, Harry Peterson Sekammatte of Jam Gayaza had a tent dedicated to different flavors of homemade jam. Some of the flavors on sale included strawberry and mango:

“I personally believe that while we should celebrate our own cultures, there is no harm in borrowing good things from other cultures, and for me jam is one of them.”

And delicious jam it was, he offered me a piece of bread with strawberry jam on it and I couldn’t help asking where their distribution points are.

Food stalls at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Petra Behnsen.

Learning skills like handloom weaving

It wasn’t just a market place for buying and selling, but also an avenue for women to learn skills if they so wished. No woman can claim independence without a strong financial muscle, and the Textile Development Agency (Texda) was on hand to offer skills in handloom weaving, tie and dye product development and garment production.

The gist was to transform fiber into great fashionable clothing with amazing print designs.

Personally I had believed that handloom weaving belonged to those far by-gone centuries, but Grace Kirabo, who heads Texda, told otherwise:

“Handloom weaving is used in our locally produced Kikoyi wear, kangas, table clothes, bags, napkins and whatever else you can think of. Any woman who wants to acquire this ageless skill can always come to our school in Bukoto, at the radio Simba stage,” she said.

AfriPads at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Petra Behnsen.

Still on the topic of garments, there were also those that we dare not mention. They are not exactly garments yet nevertheless a necessity. It’s been repeatedly said that teenage girls in northern Uganda drop out of school due to lack of sanitary towels.

Women’s Day was a good day to address such an issue, and AFRIpads (Uganda) was on hand to launch the cloth sanitary pads dubbed “A monthly challenge, a smart solution. Wash, dry and wear, works up to one year.”

Surprisingly, I didn’t find many women at this tent, which could only mean one thing. This product may need an aggressive marketing campaign to convince the women that hygienically, it is viable.

Talking about health, Yoga workshops with Ife Piankhi, aerobics with Crysla Sports, health lifestyle and osteopathy with Rebecca Wangi also took place, to show that the independent woman needed to keep fit and have her body image in mind. There were also demonstrations by the Lady Cranes rugby team and lady kickboxing.

Kickboxing at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Petra Behnsen.

Create your future

The subject of art nevertheless continued with the art space; a ground that had been designated for art workshops, debate and photography organized by 32 degrees East Ugandan Arts Trust.

There was also the Create your future, a giant interactive painting jigsaw for all, about the future of an independent woman with artist Violet Nantume.

Viloet Nantume creating the future at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Petra Behnsen.

The vibe definitely carried the tempo of the festival. This was a place for singers, poets and musicians, and it was never dull for a single moment. MC Cotilda livened up the crowd with her incessant jokes as well as her call ups of different musicians.

Sifa Kele, a rock group made of only young women who sing and play their own instruments, rocked the show and Tamba’s soul was infectious.

Sifa Kele and MC Flower at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Petra Behnsen.

On the catwalk

But the real crème de la crème was the independent woman fashion show. There was nothing independent about the show, as it was a collaborative effort between different designers, and the clothes were not sharp-looking suits designed for the working women; nevertheless, they were sensuous, soft, feminine and beautifully made.

The house of Juliana Okore had long flowery chiffon dresses in brilliant mix of different colours, just right for beautiful, emancipated and strong women. Zion house, which emerged the winner of all the different collections on display, had designs made out of sweater material, African Kitengi with cotton jackets as finishing.

Zion Design at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Sarah Bernabe.

Stella Atal resorted to body art; and she is always full of surprises! She had her models almost painted nude, with both legs and the midriff (they just managed with a pant and a bra) in bright colours of orange, black and blue. Later, she simply said: “I love pushing the boundaries of fashion and making art wearable.”

Her collection was simply stunning and MC Cotilda rightly said: “I don’t want to be a man right now” as whispers and questioning looks broke out in the audience.

Stella Atal at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Sarah Bernabe.

Claire Tendo Designs brought us back to reality with clothes made out of organic materials like sisal and bark cloth. Then, the models modeled three of Teddy Nabisenke’s pieces and later she was to say each stood for abstinence, family planning and preserving nature. Concepts totally having nothing to do with the clothes presented!

Design by Teddy Nabisenke at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Sarah Bernabe.

Isabella showcased Kitengi in vibrant colours of blue and orange with a one piece garment accessorized with stockings and head pieces; creating a gentle and feminine look.

The fashion show represented also the end of collaborative fashion workshops which had been taking place for three months, and it was deemed possible to reward the best and dedicated designer at the end.

The French Ambasssador, her excellency Aline Kuster, handed out the awards and certificates to all those that participated. The winners were to receive a mentorship from successful designer, Gloria Wavamunno.

Closing remarks

The after party closed this rather spectacular day, even though the majority of the festival goers had already left. Undeniably, it had been a long day, but an exciting one straight to the end.

The only thing missing was that it was not all-inclusive. A large chuck of the Uganda woman was not represented: Those that work in Owino market, the rural areas and ghetto places.

Could it have been for the fact that she is not regarded as bold, beautiful and independent? Or simply not sophisticated enough to realise the role art does play in her life?

Besides that, it was a great festival and I am certainly looking forward to another one next year. And I hear you say all the independent women out there “Yeah, bring it on!”

See you next year at International Women’s Day Uganda 2013! Photo by Petra Behnsen.

Elizabeth Namakula is a freelance writer living in Kampala, Uganda. Her short story “A World of Our Own” was recently published in the Femrite-collection “World of Our Own”.

All photos by courtesy of International Women’s Day Uganda Facebook-page. Please note that the organisation already now is looking for volunteers for next year’s event.

Written by Farida N. Bagalaaliwo

The panellists were: Angella Emurwon (playwright and theatre director) and David Cecil (film lecturer and owner of Tilapia Arts Centre). There were supposed to be four panellists, but the other two Abbey Mukiibi and John Ssegawa (co-directors of the play State of the Nation) were unable to attend.

The discussion at times therefore became (perhaps unhelpfully) focused around the controversial play The River and the Mountain (written by Beau Hopkins, directed by Angella Emurwon and produced by David Cecil). The discussion was moderated by Ms. Doreen Baingana (chairperson of Femrite and one of the founders of Wazo).

Angella Emurwon and David Cecil at WAZO Talking Arts, Kampala Feb 5 2013.

“Art is censored in Uganda”

Ms. Baingana started the evening’s session on the premise that art is censored in Uganda, as reflected by the events that transpired when the Media Council of Uganda banned the play The River and the Mountain and the subsequent arrest of David Cecil for four days (he was later released without charge) and eventual deportation in February 2013.

There was a general agreement among those present that state censorship, of course, exists; certainly, to the extent that both State of the Nation and The River and the Mountain were banned by the Media Council of Uganda. Although, this premise would later be challenged by a visual artist, Daudi Karungi, who asked: “Is art really censored in Uganda?”

Ultimately, this latter question became the central theme of the discussion. This prompted questions of what artists at the talk meant when they spoke of “censorship of the arts”.

To ask the question of whether art is indeed censored in Uganda, we have to address what we mean by censorship of the arts.

There were competing ideas and understanding about and of the issue of censorship. And perhaps the discussion would have benefited from an initial examination of what we meant by censorship. The Merriam Webster online dictionary defines censorship as:  [The] act of changing or suppressing speech or writing that is considered subversive of the common good.

As the discussion developed so did the broadening of the definition of censorship. There were several variations of definitions of censorship, as it relates to the arts in Uganda and the discussion then centred on these other forms of censorship. Namely, state censorship, structural economic/cultural censorship and self-censorship.

State Censorship of the Arts

When the artist, Daudi Karungi, asked the question of whether the arts are really censored in Uganda, he was likely referring to state censorship.

There is of course state censorship in Uganda, governments in all societies practice some form of censorship. It is the degrees and justifications that vary, and those relate directly to the extent to which the principles of democracy and the laws of the constitution are upheld in a given state.

Uganda is a signatory to several international statutes on freedom of expression and this right is enshrined in its own constitution where: Article 29 (1) (a) of the Ugandan Constitution 1995 states that:- “every person shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, which shall include freedom of the Press and the Media.”

While the specificity of censorship where it occurs in Uganda may not seem to be directed at the arts, the Uganda Media Council (Under article 10(1) of the Press and Journalist Act 1995 Cap 105, the Council) has as one of its functions the right “to censor films, videotapes, plays and other related apparatuses for public consumption.”

Protecting peace and morale

In Uganda, the emphasis on state or state-sanctioned censorship has appeared to do with suppressing views that contradict or criticise the government’s position and practices. The second dominant form of censorship in the last few years has to do with the issue of homosexuality. The government seems worryingly far less concerned with issues like the pornographic content in some national newspapers.

The two plays that were banned in 2012, not coincidentally, raised issues that provoked the government’s primary concerns: opposition politics and homosexuality. The government’s position when it banned these two plays was ostensibly to protect the peace and the moral beliefs of the country respectively.

The River and the Mountain, performed at Tliapia Culture centre, Kampala, August 2012.

Karungi’s question of whether state censorship of the arts exists, related to another issue he and other artists at The Wazo talks raised, which is that the government pays little attention to the arts. Both plays actually ran for some time uncontested by the Media Council of Uganda. State of the Nation ran for a few weeks while The River and The Mountain ran for a shorter period before both were banned.

The delay in censoring the plays is to be expected. Governments with little resources tend to censor after the fact, waiting to see who raises their head above the proverbial parapet and whether the public is drawn to the artists’ message.

The government’s seeming ignorance of the arts (until provoked) suggests two things. Firstly, that the arts in Uganda are not producing anything qualitatively worthy of notice. And secondly, that if they are producing anything of quality and worthy of notice, there is no significant penetration into the public consciousness for the government to worry about the subject matter of the art being produced.

Hence, the perception by the artists gathered at the 8^th edition of the WAZO talks that there is no overt state censorship of the arts in Uganda.

Disturbing the peace

The American writer James Baldwin once said in an interview: “Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace.”

If artists in Uganda are not challenging the status quo, not provoking debate and discussion in the public arena, not attracting the state’s attention (both positively and negatively), is this a problem for the development of Ugandan arts?

The answer here I think is, yes, it is a problem.

Not all art is going to be provocative, nor should it be, but some of the art created in a society must provoke the imagination, the senses and even our consciousness; and there should be art that makes us ask questions of ourselves and of the world we inhabit.

The State of the Nation and The River and the Mountain may have been provocative, but did they raise debate around the subjects they covered, did they ask questions of us, and did we respond as a society?

So much of the discussion became about the banning and not enough was an exploration of what the plays were really about. Indeed, Ms. Emurwon said that one of her main frustrations was that so many people who criticized the play had not even watched it, including some of the censors.

If Ugandan writers, painters, sculptors, dancers are not disturbing the peace, or at least to the degree one might expect—and that of course is debatable—then what is stopping them?

This brings us to the other forms of censorship discussed at Wazo, namely structural (as distinct from state) censorship and self-censorship.

Angella Emurwon and David Cecil at WAZO Talking Arts, Kampala Feb 5 2013.

Structural censorship

All artists face the structural censorship of economics (funding) and culture (the prevailing societal beliefs and norms). But the Wazo talks addressed a very particular kind of structural economic/cultural censorship, which is perpetuated by the western NGO funding system.

Mr. Cecil argued that western NGOs are responsible for a kind of economic/structural censorship in theatre, where the plays produced follow an NGO-influenced agenda. The argument here is that NGOs are insisting that particular stories be told in order for artists to secure funding thus limiting, or at least inhibiting, the artists’ imagination.

Artists begin to focus on ideas that will garner them donor money and get them on the festival circuit rather than work that drives their souls and intellect.

I have raised a similar point regarding the films being made in Uganda; although I did not see it as censorship, rather an attempt by NGOs to direct the agenda of discussions in developing societies in service to their own economic (funding) and national interests, and local artists falling in line to collect the money and executing those interests on behalf of western NGOs.

But is this censorship? And if it is a structural form of censorship is it economic or cultural?

Perhaps it is, in a sense, censorship, and it is in this instance both economic and cultural. And it can be more nuanced and complicated than it first appears. People often follow the money, that is straightforward enough. But economic censorship affects what is written (NGOs influencing the stories being made) as much as what is not written.

Indeed perhaps the greater impact of economic censorship might be on what is not written or the art that is absent. The idea of “absence” as censorship is not new. In 1989 Sir Max Stafford Clifford, former artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre in Britain, argued that as a result of cuts in government funding of the arts, ”what is being censored are the plays that aren’t being put on, the plays that aren’t being written.”

There is a certain irony in Cecil’s assertion that NGOs censor the arts in Uganda by insisting on their own agenda, because some of the objection exhibited at Wazo to the play he produced was that there was suspicion that it had been funded by what someone referred to as the “pink dollar” (a reference to a liberal gay lobby).

The fact that the play was written by an Englishman, and produced by an Englishman seemed to bear out the resentment and suspicion by some, even in the art world, that there is an insistence by western entities to direct the national agenda of developing countries by funding particular arts projects which may go against the dominant beliefs and culture of the local population.

In a sense, Mr. Cecil and some of those who objected to the play were making the same point but from different perspectives.

David Cecil at WAZO Talking Arts, Kampala Feb 5 2013.

Was it right to censor the play?

This issue of structural economic/cultural “censorship” (influence) in this regard raised a lot contention, and the focus of the discussion then centred around whether the government of Uganda had been right in banning the play The River and the Mountain, because it was believed to be promoting ideas and practices that went against Ugandan culture.

Quite a few people asserted that perhaps the government was right to have censored the play, because developed nations (via donor/NGO funding) were introducing ‘ideas’ that were ‘foreign’ to our culture and funding them. In a sense the perception was that it was not Ugandans “disturbing the peace” but rather Western developed nations. And this dynamic raised the perennial concerns, among the artists at Wazo, of neo-colonialism even within the arts in developing nations.

I believe that each artist has the agency to look for ways to make the kind of film/play or art he/she wants to make, which sometimes means to choose not to follow the ‘easy’ money.  Mr. Cecil’s case against what we have determined as “economic/cultural NGO censorship” seems to suggest that the artists have little choice in the matter since the sources of funding are very few and there is almost no government funding for the arts in Uganda.

The other side of the coin here is that an artist is also entitled to determine whose money they want to take and what social, cultural, political and/or personal story they want to pursue in their art. Funding from the government would clearly also have its own inherent restrictions on the artists freedom to express his/her ideas, particularly so, in a socially conservative nation like Uganda.

State censorship exists, structural economic and cultural censorship, as we have defined them, exist, but at the Wazo talks there seemed to be a consensus that perhaps the most insidious form of censorship is self-censorship.

In the course of the discussion the greatest censorship threat was determined not as external, but rather internal.

The curtain at the National Theatre, 2012.

Self-censorship

Xenson, a multi-media artist participating in the talk, challenged the gathered group with this question: “How many of us as writers, musicians, visual artists, filmmakers have had the police come knocking on our doors as a result of the work we’ve produced?”

Not many at the talk could answer Xenson’s question of whether the police had come knocking at our doors in relation to their artistic expression, in the affirmative. Are Ugandan artists shying away from the big questions because they are afraid?

Ugandan visual artist Xenson. Photo by Stuart Williams for KLA ART 012.

Many people made the case that even the perception of state censorship is sometimes actually self-censorship. What exists in Uganda seems to be a fear of censorship by the state and conservative societal norms that prompt artists into pre-emptively censoring themselves. The case could be made that self-censorship is probably a greater threat to the arts in Uganda than state/interest group driven censorship.

Someone at the Wazo talks suggested that perhaps artists should have a special place in Uganda to say what they want; but there is no special protection of an artist’s right to free speech in other societies.

The right to free speech/expression where it exits is for all citizens; and the effort to enjoy, enforce and preserve that right cannot be reserved for certain groups. Artists have to fight for their right to say their piece; and of course this fight is more challenging and at times even dangerous in developing and not fully democratic states.

Angella Emurwon closed the talks with the assertion that the best counter to censorship is for artists to have the courage to tell the truth and for artists to become honest critics of their work and that of their peers. The impetus is on the arts community in Uganda to get Ugandans thinking about the arts as an important and vital space in which to articulate and delineate their various complex experiences as human beings.

As Ms. Emurwon so succinctly put it: “If we are talking about what art makes us think, rather than what it makes us believe, then we begin to negate the need for censors.”

Startjournal googled ‘Angella Emurwon’ from a Ugandan-based computer, February 26 2013. Safe Search Filter is switched ON.

Startjournal googled ‘Angella Emurwon’ from a Ugandan-based computer, February 26 2013. Safe Search Filter is switched OFF.

Artists need to engage with their audiences and become honest arbiters and stewards of the arts within the public sphere. This is one of the best ways in which artists can protect their freedom of expression and preserve their personhood in a space that is still very much contested and still arguably in its inception stage.

To be an artist who challenges the status quo possibly requires more courage in Uganda, Zimbabwe and Rwanda than it might in the United Kingdom, Germany or the USA. Yet this is true not just of artists but also of all citizens of those nations. And I quote the very wise James Baldwin again: “Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.”

One need not agree with Baldwin, but there is one implicit truth in his words, which is that all the great work done in the world, however big or small, requires courage, and the same applies to art.

The best antidote to censorship is courage.

“What is peace?”

As the eighth edition of the Wazo Talking Arts proved, while the expectation is of artists to be at the forefront of debate and to challenge the status quo, artists are also a product of their culture, religion, and politics; their work cannot be separated from their experience. In other words artists are human beings, artists can be frightened, and artists can be ideologically conservative or liberal.

Angella Emurwon and David Cecil at WAZO Talking Arts, Kampala Feb 5 2013.

If there is one attribute that artists need to create meaningful, challenging, even great work in the face of possible censorship, then that attribute is courage.

Art that challenges, is art that discomfits the intellect and the emotions, it moves you from complacency; as James Baldwin said, “[it] disturbs the peace”.

If artists in Uganda are to begin to address the issue of censorship, and in particular self-censorship, then I imagine that the first step they need to take is to ask themselves “What is peace?”

Before they can disturb the “society’s illusion of safety”, they have to disturb their own.

Farida N. Bagalaaliwo is a freelance writer living in Kampala, Uganda.

Images from WAZO Talking Arts provided by courtesy of WAZO.