IT’S OPEN
A KLA ART PHOTO EXHIBITION
KLA ART 21: THIS IS OURS
IT’S OPEN
A KLA ART PHOTO EXHIBITION 30th August to 12th September 2021
‘It’s Open’ is KLA ART’s travelling exhibition open to all spectators for all photo takers – showcasing work from 53 amateur and professional photographers on a 40ft container. It’s Open launches the festival as our biggest Open Call, blurring boundaries between audience and artist. KLA ART has always centred non-traditional audiences, and with ‘It’s Open’ centres non-traditional artists as well. We invited the public to become both art-makers and art viewers and submit photos inspired by the KLA ART theme “This is Ours”. We received over one hundred submissions reflecting on what collective ownership means; of our identities, our city, our environment, our past, and our future. Interact with us via social media using the project hashtags #ItsOpen #ThisIsOurs #KLAART21. This project is produced by 32° East in partnership with the FOTEA Foundation, supported by a Breathing Space grant from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg.
INTRODUCTION Think about your earliest memory of photography. maybe a christmas day, excitedly waiting for the photographer, the only one in a fivekilometer radius, who is in a hurry to move on to the next house in the village. you might have a few minutes to get the right poses and clothes. think about how unlikely it is to recreate that anticipation, that excitement, that disappointment, that particular mix of an imperfect memory in 2021. Perhaps you would retake the photo, with enough time to find shoes and correct postures. anyone could. or maybe there is the one person in your family who is the designated photographer, either because they have the latest phone or they don’t feel like they belong in the photograph. think, also, about who gets to define themselves as a photographer despite the seeming ubiquity of the skill.
You wonder about the target marketaudience and what the intention for it is. you find a new artist whose work you immediately love. you wish you could afford the print.
IMAGINE THIS Your imperfect memory of a 2001 christmas in an exhibition. a photo you’ve taken on your phone and spent hours thinking how good it is. imagine it printed on a large canvas. imagine the same wonder it inspires might be shared, maybe not in equal measure, but just enough of it. imagine you don’t need the photographer tag to put on a show of your favorite photographs. “We need a new archive of the present for a new kind of present time. And we need to collaborate more widely, to be in dialog with very different domains of both technical and aesthetic counter-production.”
REMEMBER THIS
– Designs for a New World, McKenzie Wark
The last time you were at a photo exhibition. (have you been to one before? if you haven’t, you can have my memory) it is a sunday, life has been getting in the way every other day and today was the perfect day. perfect also because you know no one is coming to look at it today, you can fully experience and appreciate it without distractions. you like when you can have that with art. it has been on for a month, a month to celebrate women so all the art is by women, and today is the last day. the walls are white and the canvasses are grand. with price tags.
What happens when we imagine an exhibition without hierarchies? one that deliberately seeks to blur the lines between artist and audience. one that is intentional about creating with and from the community it seeks to be in conversation with. one that cedes space to the audience to engage in the direction that most matters to them. one that acknowledges that perhaps what makes something truly ours is the fact that we had a hand in its creation.
CREATE THIS
of someone riding their bike from only one side is. the road in the
put out a call for anyone to submit photographs on the theme
photograph is not busy, there are no cars in sight, and the rider is
#ThisIsOurs through social media. anyone meaning whoever has
crouching on the right side of their bike with one foot almost touching
access to whatever type of camera, from a smartphone to the
the tarmac. how does he manage that? is he falling? is he running
gigantic lenses that need bags of their own to be carried. photographs
from something? the photo is taken at such close range, i wonder if
taken only because the person with the camera found the moment
the photographer might be about to hit the rider. i think Hakim would
captivating. in whatever way that makes sense for them. intimate
have a more compelling story.
moments. planned and spontaneous moments. A photograph submitted by Daniel Moxie shows someone mid This. this is what KLA ART has done.
somersault. the photo is taken at sunset and in the background is one of Kampala’s seven hills. i can tell it is with the same familiarity
These photographs have been curated in an exhibition aptly titled:
you can pick out your mother’s voice in a crowd, even though Daniel
IT’S OPEN! and in imagining how differently exhibitions can be done,
has not specified this. their body looks like it is touching the edges of
but also fitting neatly into the KLA ART festival goal of bringing
the sky, even though you can see that it is not alarmingly far off the
contemporary art into public spaces, we are moving wildly away from
ground. their arms are stretched out as if in surrender. or flight. they
the “white cube exhibition” – the grand white walls in a traditional art
look like they could be free. like they are free. in the moment that the
space, like a museum or gallery.
camera shutter clicks, they defy gravity.
Wildly because we are putting the exhibition on a truck! imagine that.
I love that each of the photographs submitted for the IT’S OPEN
the truck will be making its way o different routes in kampala. perhaps
exhibition does something like this: take mundane moments in time
you might even catch it on the road, passing by you.
and freezes them into something we, with whom it is taken in mind, can recognise. this? this is ours.
It is exciting to imagine what Hakim, my boda guy, might think of the different photographs of boda bodas that are part of the exhibition.
E.N MIREMBE
I particularly plan to ask him what he thinks the story behind a photo
Curator Fellow
THIS IS OURS
EXHIBITION SELECTIONS
ANTHONY GWARO
Beast of burden.
You can’t throw shade on the hustle.
CRIMSON RAGE
Making kikomando.
The way you feel in a temple is a pattern of how you want to feel in your life.
Bodas talking while riding.
DANIEL MOXIE
Gideon Slomo Sekiwano.
Gideon Slomo Sekiwano.
Gideon Slomo Sekiwano.
ETHEL AANYU
Twisted truth.
Twisted truth.
HASSAN OMAR WAMWAYI
Omukyala we meere.
This is us.
JIM JOEL NYAKAANA
Life is all about crossing bridges.
There is a storm ahead on the twisted trail, yet, its the only path to a better version of myself.
Who owns the swamps in this city, Kampala.
JOEL MWESIGWA
Happiness, our childlike joy, and wonder is the getaway to a loving reality
Never lose your childlike fascination with the wonders of the world.
“The provider” A father and bread winner.
KATUNGUKA ANDREW
On the roadside.
My way.
KULOBA PETER
Carry on tradition.
The Abateezi.
MARTINA NALUNKUMA
Chronic pain 4 - clench.
Chronic pain
Chronic pain
MUKISA VON
OTIM GERALD
The beauty of Kampala
No better way to enjoy the morning than watching the sunrise.
No matter the play ground, football has to go on because this is our Uganda.
PRISCILLA JENINAH
Lighting technique one.
Lighting Technique two.
RONALD SSEMAGANDA
Street market
Kampala old taxi park.
TIMOTHY LATIM
Easter.
TIMOTHY SHOTS
The flags, the masks
A clean city is everyone’s responsibility.
Children having to be Adults
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