“Njabala: Holding Space” is the second iteration of the Njabala Foundation’s annual exhibition program, which was launched in 2021 by Ugandan curator Martha Kazungu to increase the visibility of female artists. The folk tale the show takes as its starting point concerns a lazy girl whose parents are so wealthy she never has anything to do for herself. Helpless at their death, she marries and summons her mother’s ghost to cultivate the land and tend to her chores. The exhibition opens with hyper-realistic charcoal and colored pencil drawings by Mable Akeu, which dwell on the intimate act of a mother caring for her daughter’s hair. The curator’s choice to follow this scene with paintings by Pepita Biraaro reflects the anguish that the fictional Njabala must have felt over the loss of her parents. If Biraaro’s paintings are essentially abstract, Abandoned, 2022, we can make out a solitary and desolate figure curled up in a fetal position. This thread continues with Birungi Kawooya’s trio of wax pastel drawings on barkcloth and banana fiber, in which she works on family trauma and the pain of isolation. The British-born artist, who has been in residence in Uganda, emphasizes the use of local materials like banana fiber (the fruit is a staple in the country’s cuisine).
For the installation of Pamela Enyonu Some burning questions, 2023, woven baskets, traditionally used for food, hang from the ceiling. Suspended inside each is a copper-covered gourd on which are inscribed questions such as “Do I love? On the ground below them are raised winnowing fans with bean seeds, a reference to the type of gendered work that Njabala never learned.
