Ugandan musician and politician Bobi Wine says culture can flourish with freedom. He was part of a group of African artists invited to a DW panel to discuss opportunities for Africa's creative scene.
Bobi Wine fights for change in his native countryImage: Björn Kietzmann/DW
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Should African creatives leave or stay?
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"Freedom comes to those who fight, but not to those who cry, coz the more you cry, the more your people continue to die, so rise and defend your rights!"
With these lines from his song "Time Bomb," Bobi Wine opened a panel this week at the invitation of DW culture editors within the framework of the annual Global Media Forum.
In his native Uganda, Wine could end up in prison for that statement. Since 2018, Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi — his real name — has been blacklisted as an "abolished artist" in Uganda.
"I'm not supposed to stage a concert and neither is my music supposed to play on radio or TV," he said.
Bobi Wine has been arrested time and again in UgandaImage: Abubaker Lubowa/REUTERS
Active in politics since 2017, Bobi Wine is a thorn in the side of Uganda's government. He opposes President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled for the past 36 years. In 2021, Wine ran as a presidential candidate despite attempts at intimidation — he has been repeatedly arrested and tortured in recent years.
He lost the election, and he and his family were placed under house arrest for months. The fact that he is still alive at all may be because the government wants to uphold the narrative, at least to the international community, that opposition is possible.
But Wine does not want to leave his country, because that would "be betrayal — betrayal of myself and my people. And it would not make practical sense at the end of the day," he told DW.
"The tyrants that rule some countries in Africa [...] can pick you from any part of the world and kill you," he said. "So, other than making it hard for my people, they would rather kill me from home. I don't want to make it expensive for my family to carry my body from wherever and take it back home. That's Uganda — it's where I'm born and it's where I'm going to buried at the end of the day."
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Is going into exile the only way?
Stella Gaitano, a writer from neighboring South Sudan, decided to go into exile. She, too, was persecuted and arrested several times for writing texts that denounced warmongering in her region.
The Sudanese-born author participated in protests against former strongman and autocrat Omar al-Bashir, who was overthrown by the military in 2019. She is also involved in various NGOs that provide food donations as well as books to refugees and displaced people.
'Art is a soft power'
Five artists from Africa met to discuss how to use art to make a positive change in their native countries.
Image: Privat
Stella Gaitano
Born in Sudan in 1979, the author writes mainly about war, escape and displacement, but also about great expectations and hopes for her native country. In early 2022, she fled to Germany with the help of the PEN writers' association. Art is a living thing that needs space to be freely expressed, accepted and supported, Gaitano says.
Image: Privat
Angele Etoundi Essamba
Angele Etoundi Essamba, who comes from the francophone part of Cameroon, left her home country at the age of 10. Today she lives in the Netherlands and is considered one of the most world's successful African photographers. She draws her inspiration from the her Cameroon heritage and regularly travels back and forth between the continents.
Image: Tamara de Graaf
Bobi Wine
According to his Twitter bio, Bobi Wine is "one Ghetto child who has something to say through music." And that's what Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi, which is his given name, does as a musician, but also as a an activist and politician. In 2021, he ran against long-term president Yoweri Museveni despite massive attempts at repression. He was ultimately defeated but is fighting on.
Image: Lukeman Kampala
Ike Nnaebue
The Nigerian director, screenwriter and producer is considered one of the leading representatives of new African film. His most recent works deal with issues such as migration and human trafficking. His acclaimed documentary "No U-Turn" examines why young Africans are still forced to risk their lives to reach Europe.
Image: Privat
Akinbode Akinbiyi
Born in Oxford, Akinbode Akinbiyi has Nigerian roots and now lives in Berlin. He is one of the best-known African photographers and calls himself a "wanderer between cultures and worlds." For years, he has been using his camera to capture the hustle and bustle of life in African cities — just as he does in the German capital.
Image: DW
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Change needs education, she argued.
"Dreaming about countries is not enough. We have to work and we have to build ourselves first — then we can build our countries," she said.
Gaitano prepared her children for the possibility that she might have to flee one day. "That made me strong and that made them strong," said the author, who has been living in the town of Kamen in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia since March 2022. She is a fellow of the PEN writers' association Writers-in-Exile program, but with her ex-husband in Sudan, her three sons are waiting for visas to join their mother.
Ike Nnaebue from Nigeria wanted to leave his homeland more than 20 years ago to seek his fortune in Europe. He had already got as far as Mali when tales of the dangers of the journey made him change his mind. Today, Nnaebue is a celebrated Nigerian filmmaker. His documentary "No U-Turn" received special mention at the Berlin Film Festival this year.
Filmmaker Ike Nnaebue's documentary 'No U-Turn' received special mention at the Berlin Film FestivalImage: Björn Kietzmann/DW
"As artists, we have very big responsibility," he told DW. "Part of our work is holding a mirror to society and pointing society in the right direction."
"The job for us as creatives from Africa, from West Africa and especially from Nigeria is to show what is possible, to show that people can dream from wherever they are," he said.
He believes this is a good time for filmmakers in Nigeria because people want to hear about "everyday heroes of everyday life ... stories that show the magic of the people."
Artworks on the road
Angele Etoundi Essamba, a photographer from Cameroon, captures that magic, too.
"I wanted to break all the stereotypes that surrounded the representation not only of Africa, but of African women," said Essamba, whose works are being added to the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Essamba is convinced that art can bring about change. In the last 20 years, she said, African art has become increasingly in demand, which has clearly also benefited the artists.
African art stars you don't want to miss at Venice Biennale 2022
As the 59th international contemporary art fair kicks off in the city of canals, Sub-Saharan Africa will be well-represented with eight pavilions that showcase thought-provoking art from the region.
Image: Angèle Etoundi Essamba
Cameroon: Angele Etoundi Essamba
African artists have long lacked representation at the Venice Biennale; the 2007 fair had only one African pavilion. Fifteen years later there are eight, including the Cameroon pavilion, which features work by photographer Angele Etoundi Essamba, among others. Her mission to "portray womankind" is reflected in her images of women who radiate strength and independence.
Image: Angèle Etoundi Essamba
Uganda: Collin Sekajugo
Along with Cameroon and Namibia, Uganda is participating at Venice for the first time. Multimedia artist Collin Sekajugo presents "Radiance: They Dream in Time," which explores the theme of identity through collage images. Sekajugo is often the central figure in works that reflect on his multi-ethnic background — his mother is from Rwanda, his father from Uganda.
Image: Collin Sekajugo
Namibia: "RENN"
Controversy has surrounded the entry from Namibia. Local artists have petitioned against the work by "RENN," a 64-year-old white artist, arguing it presents racist and colonial views of Indigenous peoples. The main sponsors of the event subsequently withdrew, the project "The Lone Stone Men of the Desert" was cancelled.
Image: RENN
Ghana: Afroscope
In 2019, Ghana made its acclaimed debut at the Venice Biennale. In 2022, Nana Oforiatta Ayim is once again curating Ghana's pavilion, which presents a group show entitled "Black Star: The Museum as Freedom." Afroscope, one of the displaying artists, presents "Ashe," a work exploring the confluence of spirit, technology and elements such as water to depict dreamlike alternative realities.
Image: Afroscope
Ivory Coast: Laetitia Ky
Artist and feminist Laetitia Ky has a devoted Instagram following due in part to the art she creates with her hair, which she shapes into diverse symbols and figures. Her art seeks to draw attention to colonial structures that continue to prevail on the African continent. These include the predominance of Western beauty ideals among women, especially in terms of their hair styling.
Image: Sasha Gankin/DW
Kenya: Kaloki Nyamai
For the Kenyan pavilion, Kaloki Nyamai contributes works that explore, among other things, the history of the Kamba communities, an ethnic group in eastern Kenya. In doing so, he engages with the orally transmitted histories and stories of his community and his own fragmented cultural memory. His work shifts between the figurative and the abstract.
Image: Kaloki Nyamai
South Africa: Lebohang Kganye
Representing South Africa at the Biennale alongside two other artists, Lebohang Kganye is an emerging young artist who works primarily with photography, though she also creates sculptures, performances and installations. Kganye creates imagined scenarios in her photographs by incorporating archival elements and figures from family histories but also theater and literature.
Image: Lebohang Kganye
Zimbabwe: Terrence Musekiwa
Sculpture surrounded Terrence Musekiwa from a very young age; at five he was already helping his father with traditional stone carving. His visual language wrestles with conventions: He wants to simultaneously challenge Zimbabwean tradition and pay homage to it. His anthropomorphic sculptures are on show at the Zimbabwean pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which runs from April 23 to November 27.
Image: Terrence Musekiwa
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"It's really a very good time for African artists," said Akinbode Akinbiyi, a British-Nigerian photographer, adding that "from the continent, things are really moving forward." Settled in Berlin, Akinbiyi regularly travels to Africa to give workshops. Be passionate about what you do — that is the advice he gives young students.
The five guests in the DW panel don't lack passion. In the face of censorship, conflicts and a lack of financial resources, they are convinced that, thanks to art, social change is possible.
