When you've been made to feel less than a human being worthy of care, through systematic discrimination because your race, gender, disability and class differ to the powers that be, over and over again, you begin to spot to patterns. I have been hyper-surveilled, over-worked and bullied in virtually all my City workplaces. All of those traumatic encounters increased my anxiety and depression and in cases I've had to leave or was terminated unfairly. I also have physical pains in my neck and jaw from teeth grinding, clenching and being gaslit into silence. But why did I choose to endure and internalise the toxicity for 15 years? I had to go back and revisit how I interpreted events in my childhood that left an imprint about my self worth that linger today.
I needed to rest, regulate my nervous system and rebuild my sense of self and an expression of that is with my first self portraiture series.
I can't wait to share it my self portraits with you.
Thank you to 32° East Ugandan Arts Trust, Arts Council England, Moleskine Foundation, Akka Project, Linda Umutesi and FG Foundation for your supporting our exhibition “Njabala: Holding Space” and my trauma resolution. You can view the work until 8 April 2023 at Makerere Art Gallery.
Can you rest? An installation of a palm and banana fibre hand woven mat, a #barkcloth sheet, banana fibre headrest and citronella. Photographed by the delightfully talented Royal Kenogo @little.goddess.k
#RestIsResistance #ArtInstallation #UgandanArt #NjabalaFoundation #ArtExhibition #ArtTherapy