‘MUWAWA’ [Without Care] | Kampala, Uganda
Ugandan artist Odur Ronald created a large-scale installation exploring issues of violence, power, money, and their impact on human life and value. He describes here the artwork commissioned by the fourth KLA ART, Kampala Contemporary Art Festival, a city-wide festival, which was also recently exhibited at the Afropocene Studio Lab in Kabalagala, Kampala.
'Muwawa' is an installation piece I created to investigate the value of a bullet when placed together with human life. In this artwork, I translate 'muwawa' to mean without care, drawing concern from the shootings in Kampala during the general election campaigns of 2020. Lives lost were attributed to stray bullets and families of the victims were promised money as compensation. I was directly affected as tear gas invaded my sitting room and gun-shot sounds filled the air causing panic and fear as violence gripped my city. From this, I was impelled to question the worth of
life and the value of a bullet.
My way of retaliating was this artwork, which is a recreation of my living space.
I made 1200 aluminum sand cast bullet-like pieces, suspended with thin copper wires mounted on a wire mesh structure in the middle of the ceiling. Bullet shadows projected themselves all over the walls and the objects in the room. In the middle of the room I placed the dining area, normally a space of peace and privacy. I built furniture and objects in aluminum: a table and two chairs, a radio, a television, a Bible, some Uganda currency notes, a passport and a stone.
I explore power-play dynamics with the objects on the table, poking at the recklessness with which the authorities showed disregard for human life and worth, manifest through violence. Borrowing from a statement made by a renown American comedian, Chris Tucker, who aided me in producing this work“, You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars, five thousand dollars per bullet. You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars, there would be no more innocent bystanders."
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I was born in 1992 and raised in Kampala, Uganda with an education from Kyambogo University. My work has been shown in various art exhibitions such as The Kampala Art Biennale curated by Simon Njami, and The Last Image Show, international art exhibition in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and Lusaka, Zambia, curated by Gadi Ramadhani and Emergent Art Space. My artwork is primarily made with aluminum printing plates and copper wires. I seek to tackle ideas from different vantage points that may reveal themselves as sculpture, installation, drawing, and/or performance to vividly express narrative themes within social-political complexities, interactions and influences in the contemporary world. The use of aluminum as a material to create with was more of a last option. Scrap metal was one of the materials I interacted with as a child and was able to fetch money with it to purchase toys. Now as an artist, I bring this material to life as a platform for self-expression.
