Artworld; where wood carving is an escape from hopelessness

Sep 05, 2012

Until October 31, New Vision will devote space to highlight the plight of slum dwellers as well as profiling those offering selfless service to improve conditions in these areas.

Until October 31, New Vision will devote space to highlight the plight of slum dwellers as well as profiling those offering selfless service to improve conditions in these areas. Today, Joseph Ssemutooke brings you the story of how Artworld in Makindye has improved the lives of people in the surrounding areas

About three kilometres along the tarmac that leads to Konge Hill from the heart of Makindye trading centre, stands this rickety stall flashing about wooden sculptures that cannot fail to catch a passerby’s eye. The sculptures are pieces designed to portray aspects of everyday African life and culture. Men gathered around a pot of local brew, a typical muganda woman on her knees peeling bananas, fishermen casting nets on the lake…

Right behind the rickety stall sits the workshop, where the wooden sculptures are made, screaming out its name ‘Artworld’ in bold letters sketchily scribbled onto the wood planks that make its walls. Any day a group of assorted men and women can be found working away fashioning more of the sculptures. 

To a passerby, the entire vista should be nothing more than the story of a handful simple Ugandans attempting to eke out a living from their rudimentary art talents. But behind that simple vista lies a story of people who are working hard to lift themselves out of the squalor and darkness of Ugandan slum life. 

Source of Livelihood

Though located in a neighbourhood towards the affluent side of Makindye, Artworld workshop deals with and has always dealt with slum lives. 

More than 20 people make sculptures at the workshop any day, most of them youth between the age of 15 and 30 years, are nearly all from the slums. More so, most of them are people who would otherwise hardly have a permanent source of livelihood. 

Shaban Mugote, the workshop head, says in total, the workshop employs about 35 people who did not have a source of livelihood before joining the woodcarving business. He says of the 35, about only eight have the requisite carving skills to fashion sculptures, the rest working as hands helping with the easier tasks such as firing and polishing the finished sculptures.

Maama Muzungu, a widow who lives in the nearby Katwe-Nsambya slum, is not sure if she would have a living without Artworld. “

When my husband died five years ago, I was left with the responsibility of fending for my five children. But I had never worked, had no capital and didnot know where to start.

I started off doing basic chores for my neighbours for small pay, until someone told me I could come here and work as a hand for daily wages that would suffice to meet my family’s daily household requirements,” she explains.

For 15-year-old Tom Kimera, he was homeless in Kisenyi II slum and without access to basic necessities when one of the hands at Artworld invited him to join the workshop. He not only got a place to work, but one of the senior artists also took him in at his house.

For Jane Waisswa, Artworld provides work not only to her, but also her 13-year-old daughter Esther Nabirye, who in her holidays. Over the weekends, Nabirye also works at the workshop for money to buy her school requirements like books and uniforms.

Changing members’ attitude to life 

A closer look at Artworld reveals that the workshop is more than just a source of livelihood. It also provides the employees with a ray of hope for a long-term escape from the hopelessness and impoverishment that comes with having neither money to invest into personal business nor special skills to attain meaningful employment.

“The most important thing people who join us here acquire is not the money they are paid, but the woodcarving skills, which once learnt one can use to turn around their life,” says Mugote. 

“It is like going to school. Once you attain the skills, you will always use them. “Because we pay our hands little, most people who join us come as disillusioned people who have given up on life and are only looking for survival means.” He adds. “But that attitude changes once they get here and learn the woodcarving skills.” 

Art movement born in Kisenyi II slum

Art world’s traces its roots back to Kisenyi slum (below the Kabaka’s Lubiri palace).  In 1994, James Mugote and Shaban Mwite arrived in Kisenyi after spending six years apprenticing in woodcarving at the workshop of Peter Isuge in Jinja.

Mugote and Mwite set up a woodcarving workshop at the market at Kalitunsi (the trading centre at the point of confluence of the roads from Clock Tower, Owino market, Bulange and Kibuye round-about). 

They then asked some youth to help with the arrangement, in excahnge for small wages and apprentinceship in woodcarving.

Five of the current woodcarvers at Artworld turned out to be among the helpers whom Mugote and Mwite took on as helpers and apprentices. Among them is Nathan Mugote, the current leader of Artworld, who is also James Mugote’s younger brother. 

The Artworld workshop in Makindye was born in 2001, as Mwite and Mugote’s workshop at Kalitunsi was broken down during the process of rebuilding the market. 

Bigger dreams unrealised because of tall hurdles

Group leader Nathan Mugote, however, says Artworld is not where he would like it to be due to a number of challenges that have limited its scope of operation as well as its impact. 

He points out the limited market for their products, which he says is because they lack connections to ‘big people’ who would help them access people who appreciate art. 

“We have a few middlemen who buy from us and resell, but they pay us little. And then people who stop here after seeing the crafts while they passing by. After seeing the crafts most of them, say Bazungu would really pay highly for our products, but as Ugandans they rarely buy anything.”

Mugote also says the workshop would like to recruit more people and train them, while they in turn help with the work, but are unable due to lack of sufficient funds.

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