Collapsing Notions of Centrality and Peripheries

The exhibition Kabbo ka Muwala, conceived as an itinerant project taking place in Zimbabwe, Uganda and Germany, explored perspectives on migration processes in and from Southern and Eastern Africa primarily through the eyes of artists from these regions. Through a wide range of media, including photography, video, mixed media, and installations the exhibition proposed alternative reflections to stereotypical representations of a mass exodus to the Global North. 

The title of the exhibition comes from an idiom in Luganda, a widely spoken language in central Uganda. The expression refers to a tradition known throughout Africa in various forms in which a bride transports presents in a basket to her new family and her parents in turn. This metaphor for migration represents a container not only for material goods carried, but also for the initial expectations and the subsequent successes and growth, likewise disappointments and setbacks, which come with marriage and also with processes of migration. In turn it also symbolises the nature of the project.

Migrants leaving their home, their place of origin, carry with them hopes and aspirations, doubts and angst - their mental ‘luggage’ being at least as important as the physical, material luggage they take with them. In the context of the exhibition Kabbo ka Muwala stands for the effort to look at African migration beyond the globally dominant perceptions and often misrepresentations, which is African migration being directed primarily to the Global North or migration being a predominantly male activity. The gender perspective was conceptually integrated by a strong representation of women artists and some artists who expressly address gender dimensions in their work like Syowia Kyambi.

In reversing the usual pattern, where exhibitions are first shown in Europe and only then travel to Africa, “Kabbo ka Muwala” began at two traditional exhibition venues in Zimbabwe and Uganda before arriving at the port city of Bremen in September 2016. Each venue featured a core of traveling works complemented by displays and exhibits that made reference to the respective region. The exhibition and accompanying programme also aimed at emerging artists, activists and grassroots organisations, universities and schools.

While the novel dimension of the exhibition is initially its strong focus on artistic representations of African migration directed at or being brought to African audiences, this was developed further by bringing these perspectives to a European/German audience. The harbour city of Bremen with its long history as a transit place for emigrants and its cosmopolitan aura came with the promise to take up the dialogue on at least two levels, the artistic as well as general public discourse on migration.

Notable works included Kudzanai Chiurai’s sculptural piece, Leviathan which pointed to the convergence of Christianity and colonialism, commerce and ‘civilisation’. The installation explores how the church alienated traditional cultural beliefs reorganising the lives of those who became its allies. Of note as well is Emma Wolukau Wanambwa’s Paradise which is a work that emerged from her research into the story of the 30,000 Polish refugees who were sent to live in remote camps in British East Africa during the Second World War. The work is a meditation on this history, and its erasure. At Kojja that there is almost nothing to see is by design, for when the camp was finally closed in 1952, it was systematically dismantled. Every brick, every bench, every lamp, every tool was either sold for profit or given away to locals. The migration from Europe to Africa then so far back in History is not acknowledged because there is no evidence that it ever happened.

Also telling is Helen Zeru’s video work Inside Out: One Foot In, One Foot Out focuses on the dislocation that coincides with migration. The uprooting of the tree and replanting it elsewhere is a symbol of refugee identity and protest. This is echoed by Victor Mutelekesha’s Are We There Yet?

The dialogue became polylogues bringing in multiple perspectives and positionings, overcoming processes of silencing and listening to all too often unheard voices, via looking at unusual, maybe uncomfortable visualisations. To this end the artist list included artists explicitly bridging European/ German and African dimensions in their work for example Kiluanji Kia Henda, Emma Wolukau Wanambwa, and Mwangi Hutter, and those whose internationality is linked to biographical experiences that make migration and mobility one of their key topics.

The exhibition took three closely related, but distinctly contextualised and appropriately modified forms in order to reach the maximum attention and audience in all three places – Harare, Kampala and Bremen. The experience gathered at the first two sites was integrated into the Bremen exhibition, the longer duration of the show in Bremen offering specific opportunities for public discourse and integration of further co-conspirators.

Opening events and accompanying programmes brought artists and civil society players together, at each venue local and national as well as international actors also got involved, for example in Kampala artist-activists (artivists) from the Nakivaale refugee settlement had an active role and In Harare there was a two conference on women and migration that brought together artists, civic groups and academics to talk about how women and vulnerable groups fare when they migrate. The Städtische Galerie Bremen will also use public spaces in the city in addition to the usual venue in order to reach a wide audience and to facilitate interaction. Art education materials produced for the exhibition will address secondary school students and teachers. 

The accompanying illustrated catalogue included essays by the curatorial and the scholarly team, as well as by Gerald Machona, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Rosemary Jaji, and Yordanos Seifu Estifanos, linking scholarship in cultural studies and social sciences with artists’ perspectives.

The exhibition ran from 4 February 2016 to 4 April 2016 in Harare at the National Gallery of ZImbabwe, and in Kampala at the Makerere Art Gallery from 14 April to 12 June 2016. It has been on show in Bremen at Stadtische Galerie from the 24^th of September and ran until the 11^th of December 2016