Tuesday, 29 Oct 2024
Tag: Okot p’Bitek

Fig. 10: Photo accompanying Julius Barigaba’s article in The East African published on 29 May 2011

Art and the “Ghost” of “Military Dictatorship”: Expressions of Dictatorship in Post-1986 Contemporary Ugandan Art

By Angelo Kakande. Although military dictatorship has distorted governance, the rule of law and constitutionalism, and caused fear, hopelessness, loss of life and property throughout Uganda’s post-colonial history, it is also a rich and productive metaphor whose visual expression is steeped in a corrupted Western concept[ion] of modern public opinion. In this article I engage this proposition to re-examine selected artworks in the context of Uganda’s socio-political history in the period 1986-2016 – a period of Uganda’s history dominated by the ruling National Resistance Movement (also called the NRM).

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Illustration by Jackson. © All rights reserved 2013.

“His Skin Lost Its Soup” | A Survey of Memory Loss

Kadongo Kamu is a musical subculture within Uganda which roots began in the 1950s with the guitarists Christopher Sebadduka and Elly Wamala. This article deals with how this culture has been subverted from mainstream culture through active technological and infrastructural modernization in Uganda from the 1960s till present.

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Ssekibala Andrew, Fish as source of inspiration for the design of vases, 2011.

Great Achievements by Makerere Ceramists

Ceramics is a cultural tradition with millennia of history, and the ceramics show that opened on November 4th at the Makerere University Art gallery was about breaking old barriers and pushing back new ones. Combined with a flair for suspension, it was bolder and even more exciting than the last ceramics exhibition at the same venue.

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Independence Monument by Gregory Maloba, 1962.

Shifts in Ugandan Art: From a rooted symbolism to philosophy as world-view

Contemporary visual artists in Uganda are not unified by pan-Africanism. They are far removed from pan-Africanist philosophers and their symbolism. Instead, artists like Wasswa Donald, Ismael Kateregga and Edison Mugalu seem to lure the viewer into a dreamscape where one is free to explore ideas of what world one is in.

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