UCASDR in the Independent Magazine of April 13 - 19, 201

https://www.scribd.com/document/377340159/THE-INDEPENDENT-Issue-516 

 April 13 - 19, 2018

35

ART | BOOKS | SOCIETY | TRAVEL | CULTURE

By Dominic Muwanguzi

Formal western art training in the East African region started

with Mrs. Margaret Trowell, a Christian missionary, who rst lived in Kenya and later Uganda. It is in Uganda during early 1937 that Trowell established her frst art classes on the verandah of her home in Mulago,

Kampala. Her teaching emphasised African tradi-tional techniques of making art. She wanted her students to be independent of the west-ern modernist approach of art production. She emphasised practical rather than theo-retical forms of learning. Students were to form their own interpretation of day to day situations and apply such understanding in their artworks. This method produced art that was localised. In 1940 she convinced the head of Makerere College (now university) to start teaching art. But Trowell’s approach or `vernacular art teaching’ was interrupted when she retired

from the art school in 1958. Since then, art

teaching has concentrated on equipping students with theoretical materials in form of European art history and acquisition of studio skills; including `proper’ picture construction and colour theory. Art training  became passive with no hands- on work for students. Art lost relevance and interested students.To return to vernacular art teaching or

decolonising art education, scholars across

Africa are advocating renewed emphasis on an art and the community approach instead of the colonial method of art education at ter-tiary institutions. This intervention makes art more practical than theoretical and encour-ages students to think beyond the classroom and be independent-minded.It is argued that art learning is impeded

when English, a colonial language, is used in teaching, in literature, and in the physical

space- the classroom.

So, teachers of art address learners in the

local language. This happened at the `Anoth-er RoadMap for Arts Education’ workshop held at Nagenda International Academy of Art and Design (NIAAD) in July 2015.But it soon ran into challenges: the scholars at the conference were trained in

western art colleges and live abroad, the project emphasised structural policies, and it

lacked funding. Although it was funded by

NIAAD and similar art institutions, these in

fact solicit funding from western art colleges or cultural institutions. So the west was still promoting its own ideology through tar-geted support.

Secondly, art colleges like Makerere Uni

-versity traditionally perceive art as elitist and not for the average person in the com-

munity. It is a contradiction aicting the art

and the community schemes at Makerere.

Recent eorts to integrate the local commu

-

nity through exhibitions of artworks by or

for the deaf and blind by both Dr. Angello Kakande (All the Light We Can See 2017) and Dr. Amanda Tumusiime have been suc-cessful. But the academic approach impedes

their eectiveness. Community integra

-tion is treated like a research project for the academia and not a communal venture that

 benets the grassroots.

Tusiime Mathias’ community art project;

the Uganda Community Art and Skills Development Recycling (UCASDR), is dierent. It is located in the community.

Tusiime an artist with no formal art train-ing is a casual labourer at the School of Fine

Art and Design, Makerere and through his indigenous art practices, he established a

platform to train the local community in art skills through apprenticeship. This scheme

promotes innovation and experimentation.

It has created barkcloth paper. It is devoid of academic pretensions.

Thirdly, the emergence of academic art platforms like Thirdtext Africa and recently

Startjournal makes vernacular art teaching

inecient if not ambiguous. The editorial

teams and policies used to document and censure art from the continent and western- based yet many artists and practitioners do

not have the “relevant” qualications to do

art.

Some local artists, such as Eria Sane Nsub

-uga an artist – a Phd student at Southamp-

ton University in England - argues that aca

-demic knowledge is essential to safeguard the disciplinary aspect of art. The surge in the interest of art from Africa and in art festi-vals in Europe and North America is seen as a threat not a boon. It shouldn’t be.

 Speaking  vernacular for modern artists

Contradictions in decolonising art training in Africa

https://www.scribd.com/document/377340159/THE-INDEPENDENT-Issue-516