entre nous/unter uns/between us
“between guidelines” is a partizipatory art project, created in collaboration with members of NakivArts, a group of artists & activists in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Southwest Uganda.
What goes through… and in between?
_2015/16 performance workshops with NakivArt artists in collaboration with students of the EMMIR program, Master of Migration and intercultural Relations and students of Bishop Stewart University in Mbarara, Uganda.
Artists from Nakivale are invited to explore their role and role shift as artists, cultural workers, designers, organizers and entrepreneurs or art educators towards the status and designation of a refugee. The participants translate their experiences into guidelines that are finalized, handwritten or printed on banners for individualized barriers.
Most episodes of the performances include barriers designed with the group’s statements. Their poles are imitating those of brass exclusive VIP guidance systems also refered to as Crowd Control Barriers.
FAR FROM OUR COMFORT ZONE by Victor Turatzinze
Video #1 2015 Participants collected texts in linear forms. These were presented as inscriptions on labels of everyday objects, displayed in architectural structures, on urban or rural readymades.
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NakivArts collected guidlines and statements
at Makerere Art Gallery in Kampala, Uganda 2016, photo Benjamin Terarc
Starting point_08/2015
Notices with guidelines that governed everyday aspects of life were to be found in public : in bus stations, community spaces and classrooms, bathrooms, churches and museums. Many were also displayed by the UNHCR in the settlement.
Who follows and crosses who’s lines?
workshop/video#1 : participants were establishing individual guidelines – visualizing them as patterns of lines in the sand or projections, on walls, objects and people. The first part of the workshop in August 2015 was open to students of the EMMIR program, Master of Migration and intercultural Relations located at Mbarara University.
The process of collecting guidelines continued online. For the second workshop many statements were transferred to banners and presented 2016. The video and installation were shown as part of the exhibition project “Kabbo ka Muwala: Migration and Mobility in Contemporary Art in Southern and Eastern Africa” in Kampala, Uganda.
workshop#2_02/2016 : The performances with barriers were realized and filmed in self-built studios, which had been built by members of NakivArt for art practice and art education in the settlement. Camera work and dramaturgy was implemented collectively. Postproduction in consultation with the group: A Fischer
More guidelines discussed by Nakivart: How do you assess the reactions to your art and the art market responding to your work in the settlement and outside it?
How should society respond to you as refugees/artists/displaced artists and people – how would you craft and organize society – how would you like to contribute to it?
Every refugee should have acess to the UNHCR
REFUGEES SHOULD HAVE ACCESS TO retreat and privacy – this may require their own barriers.
Artists of NakivArts: Gabriel Dibwe, Dnm Dupris, Ujumbe Falj, Abubakal Issa, Bernadette Itongwa, Emile Kwilyame, Jerome Kwilyame, Jozy Matimano, Raphael Muvunga, Patrick Muvunga, Benjamin Terarc and Victor Turatsinze
THERE IS NO REAL LINE THAT DIVIDES US; by Emile Kwilyame
anke fischer 