In smartphone age, the hajj is for sharing Mecca, Saudi Arabia | AFP | Arm outstretched, Abdul Rahman sweeps his mobile phone across the vista of Mecca, the Great Mosque dazzling in the sun, so his son in Tanzania can experience the pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest sites. He may be thousands …
Read More »Already made art
Local creators courting art of appropriation | DOMINIC MUWANGUZI | When Henry Marcel Duchamp in 1917 showcased a toilet component in an art exhibit, the art world at the time went berserk. There was a frenzy of criticism from art scholars and critics that alleged that what the artist had …
Read More »ARTS: Painting metaphors of life
Sudanese artist shows off transparent canvases at AKA gallery |Dominic Muwanguzi| Ahmed Abushariaa defines his paintings as a figurative interpretation of his Arabic background in Sudan and a metaphor of the everyday things and events that surround him. For metaphorical representation, Abushariaa paints abstract images of Arabic landscapes that include …
Read More »How to care for a million refugees
Imvepi settlement on the Uganda-South Sudanese border puts UNHCR to the test Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE | In the mid-morning of July 30, Col. Lam Paul Gabriel, the deputy Spokesperson of the SPLA-IO, one of the rebel movements wedging war against Salva Kiir’s government in South Sudan, sat under the …
Read More »HEALTH: Getting innovative with ARVs
Barbara Kemigisa uses he own story to get youth to test and treat Kampala, Uganda | FLAVIA NASSAKA | Barbara Kemigisa was sexually molested when she was just six years old. At 17 years, she discovered she was HIV positive. She is now 31 years old and has two children; …
Read More »KABENGE: Top lawyer and jack of all trades
Julius Kavuma Kabenge, an advocate, has been a law don at Makerere University in Kampala for the last 26 years. He is also widely known in the world of Ugandan sports; especially football and kickboxing, not as a player but a financier. Kampala, Uganda | AGNES E NANTABA | …
Read More »ARTS: Comic cases of identity
How to know an artist from their art Kampala, Uganda | DOMINIC MUWANGUZI | Want to know an artist – personality,character, and identity? Do not very far from their art. Take Roshani Madina Silibani. Her paintings reflect her double ancestry. The artist was born and raised in Uganda, but is of Indian …
Read More »ARTS: Unfamiliarity at surfaces exhibition
Some of the drawings are larger than life hanging on the white-washed walls of the large gallery space. At the entrance, a glass bottles installation hangs like a chandelier from the ceiling. KAMPALA, UGANDA |DOMINIC MUWANGUZI| Inside the bottles are drawings of different facial expressions staring at you. Right beneath it, …
Read More »ANALYSIS: Amending constitution over land
When poor peasants cry as the rich elite squabble KAMPALA, UGANDA |FLAVIA NASSAKA| Hussein Bbale is 46 years old, married with five children. But he lives in his mother’s house in Nyakabale village in Fort Portal town. This is unusual. So how did it happen? Nyakabale village is about 5kms …
Read More »ARTS: Scenes of contrast
Romantic Lamu and easy Kisenyi Kampala, Uganda| DOMINIC MUWANGUZI |Lamu, a beautiful idyllic Island located along the Indian Ocean coastline in Kenya is a popular holiday resort. The island boasts of sandy beaches and Afro-Arabian culture depicted in the architecture, cuisine, language and costumes of the habitants. Like any coastal town …
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