Ronex Ahimbisibwe– interviewed, Dec. 3rd, 2012 [FIG 01]. In this interview excerpt, Ronex, a 2000 Makerere Art School graduate, invites us to reflect on the complexity of releasing the artistic talent through an organized system of education. He is not doubting the importance of technique, but in his opinion, it appears, methods are not more important than ends. Throughout the history of art education in Uganda, art schools, art collectives, artists workshops etc. have grappled with the challenge of bringing forth a visual tradition where the African identity is not lost in the desire for academic and international standards.

In pre-colonial Eastern Africa, art had an embodied significance and played a dignified role in society. Through informal education, knowledge and skills were handed over from one generation to the next [FIG 02]. This pattern was disrupted with the advent of colonialism at the turn of the 20th century. Both evangelization and colonial administration were sustained by formal education and its implementation in Africa, fractured and subdued the structures of informal education. Consequently, indigenous knowledge systems suffered a setback, as modernization took center stage and, in this equation, local cultures were pushed to the margins and overshadowed. There were isolated efforts though, in missionary schools, to reconstitute some of them along modern lines.

It was not until the early 1930s that concerted efforts were made to revitalize past traditions within the scope of modern developments. At the center of this engagement was Mrs. Margaret Trowell. A graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art and London University Institute of education, Trowell arrived in Kenya in 1929, together with her husband Dr. Hugh Trowell.  She noted and remarked, “In Kenya, I never saw or heard of any African who was taught in the schools, painting, sculpture or any or any handicrafts beyond elementary carpentry and building.”

In 1935, Dr. Trowell was transferred to the Uganda Medical services to teach medicine at Makerere Medical School [FIG 03]. In Kampala Mrs. Trowell collected and studied the material culture of Uganda. Its energy and vitality epitomized creativity and imagination of the region that missionary schools and Makerere College had neglected. Established in 1922, as a technical school, Makerere was itself a project of the British administration aimed at offering higher and professional education in the region, as these lacked in missionary schools. Over decades, Makerere progressed to become a college, a university college and later an autonomous university. Makerere is important because, Trowell’s experiments in art education, which led to the midwifing of an East African modernism, happened there. 

A cultural disenfranchisement that unfolded in the first three decades of colonial administration precipitated a cultural reawakening among local leaders and a few colonial stalwarts such as Margaret Trowell.  Trowell was an astute strategist, who was in the right place and at the right time. She believed in a sound and round education that promoted culture through critical thought: an education that sought to restore dignity to the achievements of the African people with her as an intermediary.

In 1937, Trowell saw an account in the B.B.C. Listener of the idealistic Nigeria based colonial art educator Kenneth Murray’s exhibition of the work of his Nigerian students held in London [FIG 04]. “I decided if they could do it there, (referring to Kenneth Murray and his students) we must do it here too” (Trowell: 1962). Kenneth Murray’s exhibition was the spark that ignited Trowell’s eventful journey to a distinctive career in art education in East Africa. That week, she went to see Mr. Tomblings, Principal of Makerere College, and offered to start an experimental class to teach painting. As the college lacked facilities for art, Trowell started informal art classes on the verandah of her house at Mulago. She avoided teaching by demonstration as she felt this would undermine the African “freshness and vigor” that she hoped to preserve.  In her pedagogy, we see echoes of an informal African education system that had lost ground in missionary schools.

Miss Mary Fisher had two years earlier been posted to teach art at Gayaza, a nearby girls’ school. The two exhibited their students’ work at Namirembe Synod Hall in Kampala in 1938…marking the first art exhibition in the country. Opened by Sir. Philip Alex Mitchell, the governor of Uganda, the Namirembe exhibition launched Trowell’s efforts of bringing African modernism in the region into the limelight. In an influential local Uganda Journal, she advocated “the teaching of art and crafts in schools, stressing the desirability of building on existing African motifs”. Enthused by the excitement stirred in the public, Governor Mitchell supported a version of the Namirembe exhibition together with a selection of material culture at Kensington in London.

With these achievements, a ground was set for an African Art school in the heart of Africa. Keen to deepen her knowledge of the essential African aesthetic, Trowell offered to volunteer as a curator of the Uganda Museum [FIG 05]. She not only expanded it with the ‘Tribal Art and Crafts’ as she preferred to call them, but also classified and arranged them in a systematic and orderly manner. After the Kensington exhibition in 1939, two landmarks defined the Trowell’s engagement at Makerere. First, the new principal George Turner submitted to Trowell’s request of including art in the college curriculum. Secondly, a building became vacant on campus and Trowell repurposed it as both art studios for her, now formal art classes and a new home for the Uganda Museum. The close proximity of the two was a major breakthrough in Trowell’s dream of creating an Art School respectful of past traditions. She wrote, “At Makerere, our teaching of art is founded as far as possible upon African tradition” a statement that was in line with the rise of nationalism that engulfed African countries a decade on.

If the post-WWII infrastructural and administrative changes boosted Makerere’s international standing, they were counterproductive for Trowell’s embryonic Art School. In 1949, a new scheme of special relationship with London University, where Makerere students could read for London degrees, was implemented. There was no provision for art in the Arts program, but, crucially, a London degree would be prejudicial to the development of a genuine African Modern Art.  Trowell overcame this impasse by directly negotiating for a London University validated diploma (equivalent to a degree) where, she designed and implemented her own curriculum while the Slade School supplied external examiners to ensure adequate standards [FIG 06].

Elsbeth Court summarized Trowell’s achievements as follows: “During her thirty years of resident (1929-58) in Kenya and Uganda, she worked relentlessly as a teacher, researcher, author, organizer and administrator to create to create a distinctively an African Art School. The Makerere University Art School, started by Mrs. Trowell in 1937 and her range of publications about the pedagogy and practice of African Arts and crafts, are outstanding examples of her achievements. Her impact also extends to an intellectual and spiritual influence that continues to find expression in the work of successive generations of students”. To honour her contribution to the development of modern art in the region, the Makerere Art School was named the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Art. 

Upon her retirement in 1958, the Inter University Council of East Africa appointed Professor Cecil Todd, with instructions to implement an academic art program. With that mandate, Todd insisted on delivering a curriculum where anatomy, color theory and knowledge of the wider world through art history were emphasized [FIGs 07 and 08].  It is note-worthy that Todd took over the school during the years leading to Independence in Africa – a period that had stirred a sense of nationalist euphoria, with a renewed interest in the inheritance of a glorious African past. His contestation of traditional African art as principle building blocks for an African modernism was therefore at odds with the spirit of pan-Africanism that constituted the core of an aspired African identity.

Under Todd, the School expanded in terms of space, courses offered, teaching staff, student intake and composition. New alliances with other African universities were forged. In 1963, for example, Dennis Williams of the University of Ife in Nigeria was external examiner. The educational legacy of Margaret Trowell, which expressly nurtured African cultural empathy, benefitted the generation of students during the Independence decade and beyond which Todd expanded with an added focus on international academic art canons.  

The programme also facilitated a complex interaction of the artist with a globalising society.  Being African and being modern were some of the topical themes in the intellectual climate at Makerere and they continue to be relevant today. A diversity of work, drawing from the rich indigenous and contemporary mainstream inferences became manifest. The Makerere Art Gallery, which was opened in 1969, became an important venue for showcasing staff and students’ work – resulting in further discussions and feedback from the audience [FIG 10]. 

Makerere’s post- independence visual narratives were particularly dramatic during the 70s under the despotic leader Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada. Chaos and destruction typified Amin’s rule. The economy declined during Amin’s “economic war”, which was exacerbated by the expulsion of Asians in 1972.  As a consequence of the increasing political and financial insecurity in the country, Makerere was depleted of its foreign and local staff. British staff Cecil Todd, Jonthan Kingdon and Ali Darwish left in the early Seventies and for several months in 1976. Ignatius Sserulyo and George Kakooza were the only surviving members of staff to maintain teaching and administration. To alleviate the staffing problem, the school was forced to appoint its recent BA graduates. 

As Kingdon observed, “In their secluded enclave they developed the language and the skills to express their feelings without censors, critics or entrepreneurs” (Kingdon 1995, 282). For fear of espionage artists expressed disgust for their abusive leaders in messages couched in mythical and legends of their cultural environment as well as biblical subjects [FIG 11]. 

Francis Nnaggenda is a non-Makerere graduate, who joined the Makerere Art School staff during this crisis in 1978 and contributed to its ethos [FIG 12]. He was singularly important in helping to keep the School active during the deprived conditions, because of his innovative approach to art making. He recuperated found materials and made sculpture. He experimented with pigments from plants and made drawings. He forged iron bars to make wood carving tools. In short, Nnaggenda advocated for and practiced self-reliance in art which was suited for the cash strapped economy. Amin was overthrown in 1979 and for 18 months Uganda staggered from one political crisis to another. Following the alleged vote rigging, one of the losers in the 1980 elections Yoweri K. Museveni, waged a guerrilla (civil) war and in January 1986, he captured power ushering in a new era of relative peace secured in democratic governance.  

Upon capturing power, Museveni embarked on the task of rebuilding the war torn country. He sought to build an integrated self-sustaining economy. He liberalized the economy by privatising government institutions.  But in the new state conception Makerere Art School seemed like a liability because it had no direct bearing to the to the needs of communities. Without courses carrying an industrial bias, it seemed like an impending closure was inevitable.

To avert the looming disaster, student intake was increased and new programs that reflected national interest were introduced. This panic imposed on the School resulted in unplanned benefits. 

To reflect the expanded academic functions, the School’s name changed to become the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts [FIG 13]. With the fear of political persecution out of the way, the School was able to once more reflect on the subject of identity. 

For example, Pilkington Ssengendo a staff member re-assessed the bark cloth one of the Ganda valued artifact from antiquities.  He combined the bark-cloth and modern paint to conceptualize the royal Ganda couple [FIG 14]. The monopoly of the Makerere Art School came to an end when the political and economic stability under Museveni encouraged competition in education and other sectors of life. With the exception of Kyambogo Institute of Teachers Education, which was opened in 1964, Makerere was the only place where Fine Art was offered at a tertiary level. During the 1990s, new private and public universities emerged, and many offered art and design.

 These include but are not limited to Nkumba, Ndejje, Mukono, Nkozi and Kampala University. Michelangelo School of Art and Naggenda International Art and Design Institute were created by private individuals with an affiliation to more established Institutions such as Kyambogo University [FIG 15]. However, the staff recruited to teach in these upcoming art departments and schools are often Maker ere Art School alumni, which resulted in a fairly homogeneous ethos for art education.

In 1999, Rose Kirumira, a Makerere Art School Professor organized the Ngoma International Artists’ Workshop (NIAW) [FIG 16]. NIAW brought together international artists, auto didactics, art students and graduates [FIG 17]. Modelled on the Triangle Artists Workshops, NIAW facilitated discussions, excursions in the countryside, talks, critical reviews, and walks fostered a mutually respectful relationship and engendered a platform for networking and mutual learning. For a country that had for over two decades been cut off from the international art circuits, the experience was indeed refreshing. 

It is this de-centering that gave the workshop its distinctive character. Artists were encouraged to experiment with new materials and processes emphasizing the need to work in unfamiliar ways. With such an unrestricted creative platform, the project delivered an explosion of talent. The unprecedented mode of working together in an informal setting where everyone’s opinion mattered, inspired the participating local artists to continue the Ngoma spirit in various ways. Some pursued solo careers while others set up artists’ collectives in the years that followed.  

Edison Mugalu and Anwar Nakibinge formed Mona Art Studio at Kamwokya-Kifumbira, a Kampala slum. A year later, the pair split up with Nakibinge forming Gecko Art Studio.  During the same time, Damba Ismail, Yusuf Ngula, Juuko Hoods and others rented a space at Bukoto and formed an association; Society of Contemporary Artists (SOUCA). A year later, Damba Ismail and Mark Kassi formed Njovu Studio in 2009, while Collin Ssekajugo created the Weaverbird artists’ workshops in Masaka, an upcountry station.  In 2009, Wasswa Donald set up a collective he named Art Punch. Art Punch expanded the range of visual art options beyond painting, printmaking and sculpture. It embraced fashion, jewelry and to some degree installations, leading us into the contemporary artist practice in Uganda.