KANYO

(for specific projects click images below)


Kanyo is a series of research-based, art projects about the aftermath of war in northern Uganda. The works were created between 2018 - 2020.


Between 1986 -2006, the Acholi people, and other people of northern Uganda, endured a conflict between the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) and Uganda Defense Forces. A weapon of war used by the LRA was to abduct young men and boys and forcibly conscript them as combatants into the LRA; and to abduct young women and girls from their homes and families and force them into marriage with LRA fighters. In 2006, a 'Cessation of Hostilities' agreement was brokered between the LRA and the government of Uganda that formally ended the war. The settlement camps that housed over 90% of the Acholi people during the war were eventually disbanded. The majority of the men and women who were conscripted into the army by the LRA underwent a traditional process of forgiveness and reconciliation and were granted amnesty by the Ugandan government. After 20 years of war and displacement, the Acholi gradually returned to their ancestral homes or created new homes in towns and other areas within the region. And thus commenced the long process of rebuilding the society.


Exhibitions: Makerere Art Gallery, Kampala, Uganda (2022), Entree Gallery, Bergen, Norway (2020); London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK (2019); TAKS Center, Gulu, Uganda (2019); Alliance Francaise, Kampala, Uganda (2019), Uganda National Museum, Kampala, Uganda (2018). Upcoming: Centro Memoria, Paz y Reconciliaiton, Bogota, Colombia (2022). 


Permanent Installation:  London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK;  TAKS Center, Gulu, Uganda.


Published Paper (Co-Authored with Kara Blackmore):  Repairing Representational Wounds: Artistic and Curatorial Approaches to Transition After War.  Critical Arts Journal. UNISA Press. 2021.


Kanyo was made possible by the support of the London School of Economic's Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa.




Using Format