Thursday, 29 May 2025
Category: Review

Lessons from Museo Soumaya: A Collector’s Perspective

By Daudi Karungi Gallerist, Collector, and Advisor on Contemporary African Art During my recent visit to Mexico, one of the most striking experiences was exploring Museo Soumaya, an architectural marvel founded by Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man and once the

Read More >>

Scenes from Daniel Atenyi's open studio at Silhouette Projects, August 2023

Daniel Atenyi: A Soul Star In The Making

by Matt Kayem As I am scrolling through my Instagram as usual, my eyes rest on a predominantly black and white poster for an open studio on Afriart Gallery’s page. It’s a new artist! I nod in agreement of the

Read More >>

Emmie Nume, I am, 2021, Mixed Media on Paper, 125.5x110cm, Courtesy of Afriart Gallery

Emmie Nume-A Diamond in the Rough

Promiscuous dark charcoal scribbles and smudges coupled with a few sporadic pastel and acrylic paint highlights here and there is what it’s like. From a distance the artwork is puzzling to the eye. It practically looks messy, unplanned and mysterious. On the surface, one may even equate it to a 5-year old’s random playtime creation.

Read More >>

Henry Mzili Mujunga, African Odalisque, 2016, Courtesy of the artist

Henry Mzili Mujunga’s Indigenous Expressionism

By Lara Buchmann Henry Mujunga aka Mzili is a legend in the local art scene of Kampala. Having attended Makerere Art School from 1993 to 1995, some of the great modernists[1] of Uganda’s post-independence period have been his teachers or

Read More >>

Kaleab Abate, Fantasized Reality, 2022 (detail), Mixed Media on Paper, 101.5x101.5cm Courtesy of Afriart Gallery

Kaleab Abate – The In Between

Kaleab Abate’s print works usher us into a complicated space of existence between comfort and distress. The Ethiopian artist who is based in Addis Ababa had his first open studio session in October 2021, after attending a three-month long artist residency in Kampala, Uganda.

Read More >>

Part of Odur’s installation Muwawa.

Kla Art Over All The Hurdles

Kla Art is finally back this year. The bi-annual art festival, which was supposed to take place in August 2020, was postponed to this year and who is not happy to finally see art in the public within this dusty city? Artist and art writer Matt Kayem visited most of the installations around town and gives you his view on each of them.

Read More >>

Installation “Afrika is not getting it” from Notes about the times at Modzi Arts by Matt Kayem.

Notes About The Times – Kayem’s response to COVID-19

Covid-19 all caught us all by surprise. Ugandan contemporary artist Matt Kayem had just arrived in Lusaka, Zambia for his art is residency at Modzi Arts when borders closed and there was no return back to his beloved motherland. Trevor Mukholi talks to the artist on phone.

Read More >>

Liz Mbabazi Co-ordinator of the Kuonyesha Project during an artist info session.

A new dawn in arts funding in Uganda’s creative sector

Lack of funding and the ‘strings attached’ to donor funding scenarios continue to be-devil many creative projects by artists in the local communities. It is one thing to have a brilliant idea on paper and another altogether to be able to execute it as a result of the financial constraints or because of creativity being compromised by the many donor requirements. Dominic Muwanguzi attends an info session of Kuonyesha Arts Fund, that promises financial empowerment in the sector.

Read More >>

Indian alley with director Dan Moss, Ashish Verma and Nicolas Fagerberg - Image: Imperial Blue

Imperial Blues: European-African co-production in the post-colonial era

Who has the right to make an “African film”? Can filmmakers who do not originate from the continent make such films that reference the continent? Who decides this? This an many more questions were raised during a conversation between Samuel Lutaaya Tebandeke (Ugandan filmmaker) and David Cecil (British producer) on British-Ugandan production Imperial Blue.

Read More >>

Librettist Simon Njami giving direction to KAB18 apprentices. Image Startjournal

Curator: Friend or Foe of Art

There has been a raging discussion on the curatorial practice for the Kampala Art Biennale (KAB18) undertaken by internationally renowned curator, Simon Njami, on social media and international art platforms. The conversation emerged in the aftermath of the biennale with online art publications publishing a series of articles by international writers. Art Journalist Dominic Muwanguzi gives his opinion on the issue from a local perspective.

Read More >>

Image: Modern Refugees, The difference between Africa’s refugees and their West counterparts was that there was hope behind the barbed wires.

Revitalising Ugandan Bark-Cloth – Concerns of the regime artist

Artist Fred Mutebi advocates for reviving the indigenous art forms. He is embarking on a new project using printmaking on 100% bark-cloth paper as an alternative surface. “Let us join our minds to strengthen Ugandan bark-cloth resumption by moving it from tradition to economics. The remaining elderly bark-cloth artisans need our support in their struggle of passing on skills to the youth.”

Read More >>

“Do Not Touch My Hair” – A performance Review of Chombotrope 

During the Opening performance of ChomboTrope , the Jitta collective by Kefa Oiro and Stephanie Thiersch yesterday at OneTen on Seventh, it was clear that they had used their creation process to deliver a strong sense of agency with shared ownership and ‘authenticity’. 

Read More >>

Plate 2: Abstract image of Kampala made by Canon and hosted on his website. (http://www.urbanunkindness.com/)

There is little I can say about Canon that he would agree with

Canon should be described as an artist before a photographer. From both his art and being in his company it is undeniable that he is one of the most uncompromising people I have ever met. Attempting to present Canon has proven to be the most challenging part of a longer study on Kampala’s urban photographers and artists and I feel that it is necessary to disclaim the highly subjective nature of my attempts to do so. – By Alex L. Rogerson

Read More >>

Plate 1 Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991. This artwork became a symbol for experimental Young British Art in the 1990s. Source: damienhirst.com

Why Damien Hirst is the greatest artist ever and why every artist should try to emulate him

“Why should an artist live and die as a pauper? Why would an artist be harshly criticized for making a living out of their gift? Why should an artist want to shift the laws of living? Why should artists not stand tall and say they want to be successful and rich?” These are the questions Matt Kayem asks himself.

Read More >>

Can Ugandan Artists Portray Ubuntu?

By Martha Kazungu “Ubuntu is the missing link in the arts here in Uganda, the reason we are growing too slow! Both visual and performing arts. Some of us can’t even share an art brush.”  – Derrick Komakech, Ugandan artist The

Read More >>

Ife Piankhi: A Language and Grammar of Healing

By Erika Holum Ife Piankhi is a recent artist in residence at 32° East | Ugandan Arts Trust. Working as a performance artist, singer, poet, and creative facilitator for over 30 years, Ife has recently ventured into a creative practice

Read More >>

David Oyelowo with the director Mira Nair, center, and Madina Nalwanga on the set of “Queen of Katwe.” Credit Disney

Mira Nair and the making of Queen of Katwe

By Kalungi Kabuye Before Queen of Katwe, Mira Nair was probably better known as the director of the 1988 film Salaam Bombay, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In Uganda we first knew her

Read More >>

Dr. Angelo Kakande Chair, Department of Industrial Art and Applied Design, Startjournal editor

Editorial: Returning to the archive: It is still rich, accessible and usable!

This issue demonstrates that the available archive of the history of Uganda’s visual culture is still rich, accessible and usable. However, it could shape a conversation on the country’s creative discourse if (and only if) we looked at it again and looked at it hard enough. Dr. Angello Kakande gives an overview of the articles in this Feb – May 2017 Issue.

Read More >>

Daudi Karungi, Martha Kazunga and Elise Atangana during the first preperatory Kampala Biennale meeting in 2016. Image by Lucie Touya.

On the Role of Curatorial Assistant, Kampala Art Biennale 2016

By Martha Kazungu. In August 2016, during a meeting where I was invited to be part of the team to share ideas on how to re-establish and run the Start Art journal, artist Margaret Nagawa, who is also the pioneering person in the effort to revamp Start Art Journal, suggested to me to develop a short narrative essay talking about my role as Curatorial Assistant in the 2016 Kampala Art Biennale.

Read More >>

Baby's day out: Sent by Nalusiba Rebecca

‘Dads’ – Report on Dads photography exhibition at the National Theatre

By Philip Balimunsi. This article summaries the experience of audiences to the Dads exhibition and their general response collected through comments. Further still the article seeks to analyse the exhibition development process and the reaction of viewers in relation to the topic of positive masculinity. Providing a platform to future festival visual conversations, the photography exhibition idea was developed between Bayimba International Festival of the arts and the Swedish Embassy in Kampala to contribute to the greater festival conversation of 2016.

Read More >>