“The fact that Kampala is not at the fore of the African art conversation is our strength and our weakness,” Teesa Bahana, director of non-profit art space 32° East, tells me. “You hear about Nairobi, Lagos and Joburg a lot more but that means we create our own world, in a way. All the work that happens here is distinctly Ugandan, but still relatable. It speaks to what it means to be really social, playful and eat life! We’re not aggressive people, which means we don’t hustle as hard as others, but we do have good vibes.”

As a newbie to this warm and welcoming city, I can attest to that. We’re enjoying a homemade lunch in the leafy grounds of 32° East, surrounded by its artist studios, library and exhibition spaces. Joined by two former artists in residence, Sandra Suubi and Liz Kobusinge, these women all generously share their insights on the local art scene, for which 32° East acts as a crucible.

“We typically offer around 10 residencies a year and are looking for proposals that suggest the artist is getting out of their comfort zone. How can we help them fill the gaps and will they see the value in having connections to other artists in the community? There has to be a level of openness,” Bahana continues of the organisation’s ethos, which was originally founded by Rocca Holly-Nambi in 2012.

Suubi came here after completing her Masters in 2018 and went on to become its community officer. “I do public art. I study a space and create for that space,” she says. “So it was interesting to get my head out of my own work and question what I’ve been doing with others. The workshops here attract all sorts of people and result in some really cool collaborations.” Her practice often uses recycled plastics and metal to create large, colourful sculptural installations that “turn trash to treasure” and bring the societal role of artists into an everyday focus. Suubi is also an award-winning musician to boot and has turned old bottles into stage costumes.

Conversely Kobusinge’s work is more introspective. The self taught artist uses drawing and painting, recently ink and acrylic on bark cloth paper, to explore the interconnectedness of women. “I’ve been researching skin as a representation of how histories shape us - how it’s marked and how it unites different generations. I’m thinking about how we repeat our histories, and how the skin keeps all of that memory,” Kobusinge says.

32° East also spearheads the KLA ART biannual, which brings public art to Kampala. Last held in 2018 wit the theme Off The Record, it took over seven locations in a city little blessed with museums or outdoor art, giving the chosen participants a chance to create responsive works that could engage with new audiences in magical ways.

Hellen Nabukenya was one of the selected artists and so I go to meet her at her home studio. Now an established name, she originally studied fashion and was so struck by the amount of off-cut fabrics thrown away by tailors that she began to incorporate them into textile artworks as a way to explore colour and encourage recycling. Her practice took on even greater dimensions when, after graduation in 2010, she began to find ways to empower disadvantaged women and weave their stories into each monumental piece.

“Women used to come to my gate to ask for small jobs and I couldn’t help them. Then one day I decided we could relate better if I invited them to work together on making my installations,” Nabukenya explains, while we recline in her garden, her baby asleep. “I gave them the freedom to choose the colours and shapes of off-cuts and handcraft them together. While we worked, they started laughing and smiling and talking to each other. I felt so good seeing their happiness. After that, I never stopped.”

For her recent exhibition Tuwaye - Let’s Talk at BLMK museum in Cottbus, Germany, Nabukenya created a series of vast carpets that visitors experienced while wearing headphone to listen to these women’s life stories. And for KLA ART, Nabukenya worked with the community in Kiyembe, an area of Kampala known for its tailoring trade, to make Munno Mu Kabi - A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed.

“Very few Ugandans go and see art, but in the public space different kinds of people can see it, which is why KLA ART is so important,” she asserts. “People got scared when they first saw the piece because they thought it was traditional medicine. Then I put a description on the wall of the building it was hanging from so they understood it, and started to feel the message of the work talked to them.”

The next day I’m welcomed into Darlyne Komukama’s home. The photographer and installation artist has been instrumental to championing Ugandan feminist creativity internationally. She is part to Salooni, the multi disciplinary collective she formed with DJ Kampire Bahana, curator Aida Holly-Nambi and fashion designer Gloria Wavamunno that uses black people’s hair as a vehicle to discuss self-care, beauty ideals, history and belonging. They have brought their immersive pop-up studios to arts festivals in the UK, St Tome, Ghana, Kenya and Burkina Faso and recently did the TEDx Euston talk ‘On Being Enough’.

“The hair that grows out of your head is enough but if you want to change it, that’s okay,” Komukama explains as she opens some cold beers. “It’s about getting to a point where you learn to love yourself and accept who you are in this body, but sometimes if you fall back into some unconstructive patterns, that’s okay too. All the iterations you can wear your hair are all the ways that you can be. Remember that you are enough just the way you are.” Salooni is an ever-evolving project for all of them and one she feels no need to pin down or define. “It will be whatever it will be, there’s no pressure. Perhaps a photo book, a comic or a video game? These are all our ideas.”

As a solo artist, she sculpts experiences that are meditative and bold in a country where gender-based violence is rife. Another KLA ART 2018 alumnus, she presented Penthouse, a rage room on a rooftop where women and femmes could be on their own with a bat (to swing), a punching bag, some glass (to smash) and a basin of water (to scream into). “I wanted to bash some shit, and thought maybe other people will want to bash some shit, too,” she says. “At the time I was feeling rage about a spate of murders of lower class women who had been raped and left to die horrible deaths on the side of the road. Up to now there have been no arrests. At the same time a woman MP had got her stalker convicted, which was a big deal, yet all the discussions around it defended the guy. ‘Hey, can’t a man express interest in a woman anymore?’ It’s not easy to be a woman in Uganda.”

Also involved in Kampala’s annual experimental music festival Nyege Nyege, alongside co-founders Derek Debru and Arlen Dilsizian, Komukama agrees with her fellow art activists that there is strength is collaboration. “Everyone is a polymath here, and everyone is involved in other people’s projects. We help each other out. I like that. To make something happen on your own is very hard so community is invaluable.”

Stacey Gillian Abe’s multi-dimensional practice has also been fuelled by necessity and a need to express herself fully as a strong woman artist. After a traditional art education focussed on sculpture and painting, she taught herself performance, video and photography as a means to explore familial and cultural narratives. She’s exhibited at art fairs in Joburg, Cape Town and Paris, enjoyed a residency in New York and partners with Afriart Gallery, one of the most respected commercial galleries in Kampala that also organises the Kampala Art Biennale.

“I pick from my experiences and reimagine them – an autobiographical documentation of my past that is also connected to spirituality,” this quietly confident woman tells me. “Where I come from, we are animists, we believe there is no strong distinction between the physical world and spiritual world. I express that visually by bringing different versions of myself together, as if from the past and the future, to create a dialogue between realms. For example, I use long exposure photography to create ghost-like images and non-existent spaces that could be from a memory, a dream or the imagination.”

Her recent body of work, Seat of Honor, addressed her culture’s view that only when women are married with children that they can have true respect. The series of images sees her wearing marriage attire and sitting on a terracotta throne covered in vagina shapes. “I’m trying to assert my position in society [as an unmarried woman] and question what it means to be powerful. I don’t want to go against my traditions but am drawn to what I want to do, so it is push and pull.”

Likewise in the art world, Abe feels that she must fight to be heard and esteemed. But she’s clearly doing something right, voted among Forbes’ 30 Under 30 African Creatives last year. “It is tough because there are fewer female artists than male artists in Kampala. There are amazing veteran female artists who have paved the way, like Dr Rose Kirumira and Dr Lilian Nabulime, but I’ve still had to fight twice as hard to make people believe in what I do,” she reflects. “It’s difficult but things are changing and I hope that now other young female artists can follow in my generation’s footsteps.”

Read Nataal’s story on Afriart Gallery and Kampala Art Biennale here

With thanks to British Council’s East Africa Arts programme

Visit 32° East
Visit Sandra Suubi
Visit Liz Kobusinge
Visit Stacey Gillian Abe
Visit Darlyne Komukama
Visit Hellen Nabukenya

Published on 05/09/2019