KLA Art: Cultivating Rhythms of Care through African Folklore
Aim: Cross-pollinate diverse ideas for feminist knowledge production, between academia and community-based advocacy spaces.
Audience: African feminists
Client: KLA Art 2024 Festival: Care Instructions
Partner: Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR)
Artistic solution: Together with multidisciplinary designer Rebecca Khamala, we created a biophilic installation and soundscape that drew from the Ugandan folktale ‘Njabala’. This inspired participants to reflect and share ideas on how we can care for our bodies in relationship to the seasons in nature.
Project date: August 2024
“Abakazi balima bati, Njabala – this is how women plough, Njabala…”
Installation and soundscape
Africans have rich histories of knowledge production through song, improvised poetry, dance and performance, often inspired by our relationship to nature. These accessible forms of knowledge and teaching are decolonial, being available to the masses with opportunity for participation, creation and exchange.
Cultivating Rhythms of Care Installation
Ordered in three layers, we curated an installation comprised of a woven wall to enclose the space, a veil partition to guide movement and a food and plant display, with questions to initiate conversations on local foods and how we can care for our bodies throughout the menstrual cycle.
From banana fibre on clay-dyed bark cloth, I created a depiction of a crescent moon (speaking to the link of the menstrual cycle to the movement of the moon) and Njabala sleeping during her menstrual period, surrounded by a variety of nutritious organic food.
Weaved braided sisal rope, raffia and bark cloth were also used as expressions of the rains and their disrupted patterns, the sun rising through the day, the lushness of growing yam and potatoes, and finally the sun setting.
To express the essence of the seasons (in cultivation, the menstrual cycle, and the day) through movement, Rebecca weaved with unwaxed cotton yarn and African plants and fibres in a continuous loom around the MISR library pavilion columns.
Cultivating Rhythms of Care Soundscape
Working with African musicians (credited below), we directed a soundscape that used the Njabala folk song and natural sounds to reflect the atmospheric qualities of the different times of day. The composition features the akogo, flute, guitar, tube fiddle, and vocals, arranged to mirror the emotional landscape of a typical menstrual cycle.
Listen to the Njabala soundscape here
Participants were encouraged to move and dance mindfully through the installation, and individually and collectively reflect upon the questions:
“Spoiled and lazy or unprepared and exhausted? How can Njabala inspire us to reflect on caring for our bodies and nature?”
“How can we honour our humanity by observing the cycles in our bodies and our relationship to the seasons in nature?”
Musical credits: Music Direction by Rebecca Khamala and Birungi Kawooya. Music Production by Dustville Records. Music Composition by Isaac Kalema Akogo. Flute, Guitar, Tube Fiddle & Vocals performed by Aliddeki.
Impact & testimonials
Visitors remarked how they want to understand menstruating bodies better and be guided by those rhythms rather than the pressures of capitalism. In response to provocation, what else does Njabala need to learn, visitors said: independence.
MISR report to come