We are creating our own accesses and silent invasions. Such silent revolutions spread like a mycorrhizal underground network that is sprouting between Ghanaian blaxTARLINES and the art communities of Uganda. This Uganda-Ghana Exchange program, organized by UNDER GROUND Contemporary Art (Uganda), Vodo Art Lab & Society (Uganda), Weaver Bird Residency and Amasaka Gallery (Uganda), hosts the blaxTARLINES art community (Ghana) to stage an exhibition that delves into the expansive concept of hacking, exploring its applications to materials, ideologies, and intangible viral forms.

The exhibition silently invades an architecture abandoned to its unrealized future: Like foliage slowly expanding in a construction left to its fate, art is sprouting on unfinished brick walls like unusual mushrooms, mingling with the structure to finally overtake it. Whether it is abandoned architectures, habits of viewing art, norms of communication, the social resignifications of collective memories, the politics of safety and surveillance, the politics of representation, historical narratives– hacking as a form of insertion of new subjectivities into existing (and often narrowly defined) systems can take many forms and have many subjects. It is not more and not less than hijacking the vantage point to steer the narration towards new perspectives.

Engaging with such complex discourses demands exploring a plethora of diverse forms beyond the traditional painting and sculpture inherited from colonization which largely informs the background of most artists from the continent. Contemporary artists pursue no limit in forms and content as they embrace video, photography, performance, digital art, installations using local materials, and numerous alternative media we cannot even taxonomize easily.

The exhibition invites over thirty artists from Ghana, Uganda, DRC and Rwanda in an event that sprawls from the space of Amasaka Gallery into abandoned buildings and out into the City of Masaka:

Opening Friday, November 10, 7 pm with a performance by Xenson Ssenkaaba followed by two days of performances by Sandra Suubi and Godelive Kasangati Kabena, mural paintings and an exhibition amassing an expensive cross-cut of contemporary artistic production from the continent in painting, video, photography, performance, digital art, installations using local materials, and numerous alternative media.

Curated by:
Sascia Bailer, Juliy Gyemant, Nantume Violet, Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson and Zitoni Kayonga Tristan Tani

Exhibiting artists:
Ethel Aanyu (Uganda), Bright Ackwerh (Ghana), Afia Prempeh (Ghana), Akosua Odeibea Amoah-Yeboah (Ghana), Akanyijuka Evans (Uganda), Aloka Trevor (Uganda), Hassan Issah (Ghana), Kasagga Dennis (Uganda), Godelive Kasangati Kabena (DRC), Jacqueline Katesi Kalange (Uganda), Matt Kayem (Uganda), Kiggundu Rodney (Uganda), Adjo Daiki Apodey Kisser (Ghana), Kiyingi Henry (Uganda), Kyakonye Allan (Uganda), Bwato Makano (DRC), Nanteza Florence (Uganda), Dan Ngaara Ngalamulume (Rwanda), Odur Ronald (Uganda), Ojok Simon Peter (Uganda), Frederick Ebenezer Okai (Ghana), Jonathan Okoronkwo (Ghana), Piloya Irene (Uganda), Daniel Arnan Quarshie (Ghana), Sandra Suubi (Uganda), Lisa C Soto (Puerto Rico/Ghana), Xenson Ssenkaaba (Uganda), Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson (Ghana), Wamala Kyeyune Joseph (Uganda), Yiga Joshua (Uganda)

Program:
Fri, Nov 10, 6 pm: Opening performance by Xenson Ssenkaaba
Sat, Nov 11, from 12 am: Artist and curator walkthroughs
Sat, Nov 11, 2 pm: Procession with Sandra Suubi
​Sun, Nov 12, from 12 am: Performance by Godelive Kasangati Kabena

Amasaka Gallery
Plot 12 Birch Avenue, Masaka, Uganda

amasakagallery.com