Ugandans at the Venice Biennale

When we talk about the Venice Biennale, we are talking about the biggest event in the visual arts. You could easily call it the Olympics of the art world. Countries come together in Venice, Italy to appreciate, celebrate and communicate with art.

The festival has become a constellation of shows: a central exhibition curated by that year’s artistic director, national pavilions hosted by individual nations, and independent exhibitions throughout Venice. The Biennale parent organisation also hosts regular festivals in other arts: architecture, dance, film, music, and theatre.

The exhibitions kicked off on April 20 and even before the Biennale could take a week, there were country pavilions making political and social statements with their exhibition pavilions.

For instance, because they are advocating for a ceasefire, an artist from Israel cancelled her own show in protest. Instead of opening, the artist placed a banner on the pavilion with words: “The artist and curators of the Israeli pavilion will open the exhibition when a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached.”

But besides the Israeli, there are artists from other countries. For the second time since the Ugandan debut in 2022, Uganda has a pavilion, commissioned by Juliana Naumo Akoryo and curated by Pamela Acaye Kerunen.

We bring you details of Uganda’s representatives at the 60 Venice Biennale.

Jose Hendo

It is safe to say that Jose Hendo is having a prolific year, from showcasing at this year’s British Council Culture Week to Venice, the epitome of visual art. Hendo is a fashion designer who has come to be known as an ambassador and advocate for sustainable fashion trends. Hendo has over the years been championing the use of backcloth material as an environmentally friendly material compared to silk and cotton that usually become an environmental disaster after they are disposed of. Hendo takes a fresh approach to contemporary fashion design, challenging the obsolescence nature of fashion, and the throw away culture.

Taga Nuwagaba

Taga is known for his exploitation of bamboo. He’s a professional oil and water colour painter at Tagaframe in Kamwokya. Taga has documented different Ugandan cultures and in 2012, he published the first book documenting Buganda’s 52 totems. In Venice, Taga brings his wealth of experience as an artist that has perfected realism art. Taga’s best subject has always been wildlife and he has a remarkable number of paintings of the wild.

Saana Gateja

Also known as the Bead King, Saana is one of the older generation of Ugandan artists, a mixed media one and a jewellery designer known for his use of recycled and sustainable materials, largely paper beads to create large-scale, intricate works. Most of these are done to create awareness about environmental degradation. Like Hendo, Saana has experimented with lots of material, one of these being backcloth, though, where many have used it as collage, for him, it has been both the canvas and material. Saana has enjoyed a prolific career.

Samson Ssenkaba alias Xenson

A rapper, poet and visual artist, Xenson is a lot of things. Sometimes he only has to wear his art and perform, while the other times he totally detaches and lets the work speak for itself. For Venice, he embodies many of them; installation, storytelling and the enigma. Xenson is a multimedia artist whose work for years has been interrogating both social and political issues. With the use of materials such as backcloth, tyre waste and disposed metal, he has carved a career out of asking questions with figures and installations. Another high flying artist of 2024, Xenson’s exhibition Olidde Mu Pipa opened in Nairobi earlier this month and now, he’s showcasing in Venice.  

Ronald Ondur

Surprisingly, Ondur is a trained interior designer though he has gone on to lead a colourful career as a visual artist. He is an experimental multimedia artist whose work has in the past tried to understand the role and impact of money, power and violence on humans.  He mainly uses aluminum printing plates, copper wires and acrylics. He seeks to tackle his ideas from different vantage points that may reveal themselves as sculpture, installation, painting and performance.  

Pamela Acaye

Acaye is the curator of the Ugandan pavilion. She’s not new to Venice, having been one of the first artists at the Biennale alongside Collins Sekajugo. Aptly titled Wan Acel, Alur for We Are One, Acaye in a curatorial note says, the exhibition invites you to de-classify art through the work of a diverse group of 31 intergenerational artists. Working both individually and in a collective, they examine their contexts of art production, interrogating prevailing narratives that serve to construct and maintain hierachies of art creation.

The titles, Wan Acel | Tuli Bamu | Turibamwe, from languages spoken in wider Africa, are representative of the borderless origins of the exhibiting artists.