KARA BLACKMORE  Independent Researcher

 

Kara is an anthropologist, writer and curator who works at the intersections of art, heritage and social justice in Africa. She has extensive experience in East Africa and is currently based at the London School of Economics and Political Science where she is undertaking PhD research on memorialization and transitional justice in Uganda.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Making Memorial Art in Uganda: opportunities for social justice"

 

Nestled in the centre of the African continent exists an unexpected artistic exchange about war, peace and reconciliation. Parts of Uganda’s tragic past have been brought into the international limelight thorough films like The Last King of Scotland and Invisible Children’s youtube sensation Kony 2012. These productions fail to show the underlying ways in which collective memories emerge, with all the symbols and tropes necessary for survivors and perpetrators to narrate their stories. 

 

In the Ugandan context, visual and performing artists, as well as cultural leaders, use objects archives, photographs, stages and canvases to illustrate their visions of the past, present and future. In doing so, they participate in some of the most profound memorial processes possible for this unique political landscape. Through the exhibition Travelling Testimonies (2014-2015),making becomes the intangible keeper of Uganda’s collective memory. 

 

Artists produced their own individual pieces amongst young people painting and drawing collective symbolic representations of war and peace. Iconic images, emblematic gestures and undocumented interfaces resulted from the  several hundred works that came out a five-site tour. Unprompted, ten different trained artists dialogued alongside more than a thousand visitors to make victims’ memory maps, nationalistic paintings, interpretive drawings and performance pieces that could be taken to the next site for exhibition. Curator, Kara Blackmore will present some of the products of this exhibition to unpick the intricacies of production within a space of contested historical narratives.