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Artists, academics and arts lovers convened at Makerere University’s Yusuf Lule CTF from 8th-9th March for a symposium hosted by Njabala Foundation to discuss tracing a decade: women artists of the 1960s in Africa, powered by Archives of Women Artists Research & Exhibitions (AWARE).
The two-day event, which coincided with the launch of Njabala’s annual art exhibition at the Makerere Art Gallery, reflected on a wide range of issues featuring presentations, talks and questions and answers sessions that enabled attendants to understand key factors in the arts industry, challenges, processes, to name a few. Invisibility was a recurring theme from all the panelists and a minor touch on dredging.
About Njabala Foundation: Their name is derived from a popular Ugandan folklore called Njabala, which is rooted in patriachy and all its cousins. Naming themselves Njabala is a sight of resistance of what womanhood is.
Panelists and their topics:
Panel one: Creating in revolution - women and independence
Key takeaways
Dr. Portia Malatjie’s use of birds as a metaphor of freedom and healing intersection of art and politics and women’s interception. Birds dare to exist even without space.
Erasure. Women’s participation in politics is illustrated as wives to their husbands and mothers.
About Njabala Foundation: Their name is derived from a popular Ugandan folklore called Njabala, which is rooted in patriachy and all its cousins. Naming themselves Njabala is a sight of resistance of what womanhood is.
Panelists and their topics:
Panel one: Creating in revolution - women and independence
- N’Gone Fall (Keynote): Women and independence
- Nadia Laggoune: Independence and women artists in the construction of a local art in Algeria
- Dr. Portia Malatjie: Black women artists in politics: practicing inside subjection
- Karen Melbourne (Key note)
- Gladys Kalichini: A critical analysis of the visibility of women artists’s practises in post-independence Zambia
- Merve Fejzula: In, but not of: Younousse Seye’s art of ambivalence
- Dorothy Akpene Amenuke: Women, arise! Building a compendium of Ghanaian women creative practitioners from the post-independence era onwards.
- Liz Kobusinge: Rebecca Njau
- Lerato Shadi: Erasure of women and their contributions from historical narratives
Dr. Portia Malatjie’s use of birds as a metaphor of freedom and healing intersection of art and politics and women’s interception. Birds dare to exist even without space.
Erasure. Women’s participation in politics is illustrated as wives to their husbands and mothers.
Politics plays a part in how art appears or disappears.
Access to Black people’s archives as main obstacle for academics, artists, curators, etc. Who tells our stories? This may not be new as it cuts across all different art mediums, but still remains a consistent elephant in the room that needs to be thoroughly address; especially for colonised people, the question of who tells our stories is always there.
Mainstream visibility. The interior lives of the women artists focus on the biography than the practice; why not rather focus on intellectualising their work?
Fame is not a guarantee against rebellion. Fame doesn’t protect artists from being forgotten. We assume that fame is how intergenerational memory is stored, Merve noted; hence history is key in ensuring they are not forgotten, local press, digitisation, family and so forth.
Concluding thoughts
Gatherings of this nature will never go out of style because not only are they fun, but also a point of quest, as they enable you to understand the subject matter while empowering you with the language to articulate and question more about these issues; they serve as points of research, preservation and promotion.
This gathering was also a moment of revelation, meaning there’s more to catch up with and taking it from there.
If only funding for the Arts was taken seriously the way STEM is. The society’s socio-cultural fibre is as important as science; science does not operate in vacuum - you would think this should be obvious by now, especially after COVID. Humanities are as vital as science. Invest in them. That said, Njabala Foundation’s work is critical and needs all kinds of support; may they live to receive sufficient funding and execute all the projects of their desires.
Photo Credit: Women Artists Research & Exhibitions (AWARE) | Website
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