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The minister of gender, labour and social development, Betty Amongi, is seeking partnerships between Ugandan universities teaching art and the Dresden University of Fine Arts.

Amongi made the request to Prof Oliver Kossack, the head Dresden University of Fine Arts in Germany during her recent visit to the Western European country where she officiated at the International Association of Hand Papermakers and Paper Artists (IAPMA) Congress 2023.

During the visit, Amongi secured at least four annual slots for Ugandan art students at the summer school of Germany’s Dresden Museum of Decorative Arts.

She was in Germany at the invitation of Franziska Leischker aka Fides Linien, the IAPMA president.

According to information from its website, Dresden Museum of Decorative Arts was founded in 1876, and is affiliated with Dresden’s decorative arts college, to foster an awareness of material and design quality and to teach students, visitors as well as industrial producers and tradesmen about form and taste.

The IAPMA is one of the world’s leading organisations for paper artists bringing together 652 members from 56 countries from all over the world.

During the congress, there were exhibitions of over 80 artworks from over 32 countries from all over the world.

Amongi described the quality of the paper art exhibited by participants as ‘most admirable and unmistakable.’

“The artworks we have been able to see during our tour here leave an unforgettable impression on me and my delegation. As a politician, I am paid for talking, but the artworks I have seen here talk louder,” Amongi said in a statement.

Thomas A. Geisler, the director of the Museum of Decorative Arts, explained that while some view paper as simply an industrial product; a serving material for messages and communication others consider it as a canvas or the invitation to artistically work with and express messages with.

“Through the ‘Peace Paper Project’, an international community arts initiative that utilises traditional paper making as a form of trauma therapy, social engagement, and community activism by Jana Schuhmacher and Drew Mattot, which can be seen for a few months in the Riverside Palace, I have experienced what a therapeutic and collaborative experience papermaking can be,” Geisler illustrated.

Dr. Matthias Roessler, the President of Parliament of the German Free State of Saxony, reiterated the role art can play in promoting relations between peoples and nations and hoped that Amongi’s visit will serve as a milestone in deepening the bilateral relationship between Germany and Uganda.

Dr. Roessler described the Paper Alive! Exhibition as testament to the powerful message of paper art amidst the global challenges humanity is facing today and ‘how we go about with resource scarcity, how paper, which many take for granted, is so multifaceted’.