Preserving culture in art

Jul 19, 2001

Damalie Mbasege has always been fascinated by African traditional life, especially in her home region of Buganda. The way our ancestors used to live interests her immensely, and she is afraid it is disappearing.

By Kalungi Kabuye Damalie Mbasege has always been fascinated by African traditional life, especially in her home region of Buganda. The way our ancestors used to live interests her immensely, and she is afraid it is disappearing. "The way our forefathers used to live is fast disappearing, and that is a tragedy," she says. "In the near future children will have no idea how life used to be more than one hundred years ago. We have to do something about it." Mbasege is doing something about it, using her skills as a painter and a sculptor. And the results will be on show at the National Theatre this weekend. The Lady Damalie Exhibition will run in the Green Room on July 21-23. A product of the Makerere School of Fine Art, Mbasege is a self-employed artist who likes to work in oil on canvas, and what she calls 'profile art.' The works that will be on display depict life as it may have been a hundred years ago, or may still be in some remote village in the countryside. Traditional dancing and merrymaking, plus ordinary everyday chores dominate the exhibition. Women fetching water from the well, with pots balanced on their heads (these days everybody carries jerry cans); lighting fire for cooking, are some of the scenes depicted. Some of the scenes are treated to a degree to some abstract interpretations, and this adds to the attraction of what we may think was a dreary and hard life. Of particular interest is the painting The Hut, which shows what a traditional Ganda homestead looked like, complete with the requisite mvule tree, which Baganda think is a vehicle for ghosts and spirits of their ancestors to interact with the real world. The exhibition opens on Saturday, and will run through Monday. Ends

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});