Uganda

The complex Complex Art and Design Studio

By Wangari Mungai

_{(Wangari Mungai is a Features staff writer for a leading Daily Newspaper in Nairobi and a regular contributor to Africancolours.net)}

_{The Complex Art and Design Studio is, to say the least, complex. Not that there is anything unusual about it. An old can of paint with water here, a thousand and one fine brushes all over the place, half-done paintings and sculptures, and that unmistakable smell of a mixture of paint and felt pen ink. It is basic, granted, but also typical of any painter's workshop.}

_{The Complex Art and Design Studio is in northern Uganda, at the heart of Gulu town. Gulu district has become known internationally for hostilities that have been committed during a period of twenty years between the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group and the Uganda People's Defence Force, the national army. It has been a complex war}_[1]_{, so much so that the rebel group has lost track of the initial agenda they were fighting for. All the while, the Acholi people have had to endure the conflict and leave their villages, with about 2 million of them living in Internally Displaced Persons' (IDP) camps today. But now there has been a ceasefire and the Ugandan government and the rebels have been engaging in talks, hosted by the government of South Sudan. What comes of the talks is yet to be seen...}

_{Back to the studio. The works on display, paintings, sculptures and drawings, are mainly a representation of a different stage in the complex war in Northern Uganda. Hence the fitting name given to it by its three artist owners.}

[1] _{According to the International Crisis Group’s Africa Report N°77, 14 April 2004, “The conflict has four main characteristics. First, it is a struggle between the government and the LRA. Secondly, it is between the predominantly Acholi LRA and the wider Acholi population, who bear the brunt of violence that includes indiscriminate killings and the abduction of children to become fighters, auxiliaries, and sex slaves. This violence is aimed at cowing the Acholi and discrediting the government. Thirdly, it is fuelled by animosity between Uganda and Sudan, who support rebellions on each other's territory. Finally, it continues the North-South conflict that has marked Ugandan politics and society since independence.” (http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=2588)}

_{Right at the entrance is a life-size portrait of Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni. Next to it is one of the president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir. Their two governments are leading the search for peace in northern Uganda, and that makes the two men paramount in the future of the region.}

_{But as with every business, marketing is indispensable, and it is bright of the artists to have these two portraits outside their shop. It’s killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.}

_{Most of the works on display outside the studio are ones that the local population who has lived here can easily understand and relate to. One painting is of a man grazing his cattle, another of a group of people, but with animal heads dancing together, titled Happy Moments and done by Timothy Ochen, one of the three owners of the studio, to symbolize the possibility of different cultures living together in harmony. Then there is one of a man and a woman engaged in an intimate dance also by Timothy.}

_{‘Escape’ by Gabriel Odong-Kara Ochieng}

_{They tell the story of hope for a life that the people here would love to go back to: grazing their cattle, living together as a community in spite of their differences and enjoying the freedom of romantic relationships.}

_{It’s a different story inside the studio. While the outside face shows hope, in governments and in human goodwill, inside are grim paintings and sculptures. One abstract sculpture has not been finished. As fine artist and one of the owners of the studio, Gabriel Odong-Kara Ochieng explains, “I decided to leave it unfinished and incomplete to show the trauma and the incompleteness of the conflict that has plagued northern Uganda.”}

Complex art studio

_{There are relief sculptures that show women and children running from their villages at night in fear of attacks by the LRA rebels or another titled ‘War Child’ also by Gabriel Odong-Kara Ochieng, of a naked, malnourished child, staring into the distance with an empty plate in his hand. The works are harsh, but they are not an exaggeration of reality. Life is such in the IDP camps and the artists are using their talent to document life as it is.}

_{“This situation might pass if the peace talks prevail,” says Ochieng, “but these works of art will remain to remind people of their past, of how far they have come […] and eventually where they hope to get [to].”}

_{While the Acholi people can now smile on the surface and look forward to a better tomorrow, talking to them one discovers that in their hearts lie fears of a slip back into conflict, a pessimism about the peace talks and the political system of the day in Uganda. It’s just like the Complex Art and Design Studio, where the exterior is light and hopeful, but the interior is dark and forbidding. Thus the story of the studio is the complex story of Gulu, and the story of the entire northern Uganda region.}

_{The Complex Art and Design Studio is open Monday to Saturday from 8 am to 6 pm. It is right in the heart of Gulu town, which has a good road network.}

_{For further information, contact Gabriel or Timothy on:}

_{Gabriel Odong-Kara Ochieng - +256 782 779 339}

_{Timothy Ochen - +256 712 835 615}

_{Denis Olet - +256712601830}