Feast your eyes: the Ugandan artist serving up a potent mix of food, art and family | Global development

This time last year, Ugandan artist Brogan Mwesigwa was called by his grandmother. She invited him to a kumanyagana feast at her home in the village of Kabembe.

After a three-hour journey from his home in the capital, Kampala, Mwesigwa arrived to “the heavy lifting of gigantic saucepans and the slaughter of chickens”.

Translated from Luganda as “getting to know each other”, kumanyagana is a Ugandan ceremony centred around a communally prepared meal. But this was a special kumanyagana – some of the more than 70 people coming from the Buganda and Busoga tribes were meeting for the first time in decades. The menu offered matooke (mashed plantains), rice, beef, potatoes, yams, nakati (Ethiopian eggplants), goat stew and groundnuts.

“From the slaughtering and skinning of the goat to the colourful plates filled with food, I took videos and photos of everything as it unfolded because I had plans of painting them some day,” Mwesigwa says. His fascination with his grandmother’s kumanyagana led him to create an art installation, which is on display at KLA Art, a long-running contemporary festival in Kampala organised by 32° East.

When organisers of KLA Art asked Mwesigwa to participate with an idea based on the theme of “care instructions”, it reminded him “how my family shows care to each other through gathering and eating together”.

“Kumanyagana played and still plays a major role in fostering good relations with others,” he says. “It’s a good tool for social bonding and a perfect care instruction for such a time as this where global crises on racism, xenophobia, refugee rights and food insecurity are on the rise.”

Mwesigwa, an up and coming Ugandan artist, grew up in Kampala’s Bukesa neighbourhood, home to many immigrants and refugees.

“We went to the same schools, played football together and ate together,” he says.

In his kumanyagana installation, he has recreated an east African village scene with objects and paintings suspended from the ceilings, depicting people cooking and eating.

On 16 August visitors will be invited to eat sourdough bread with beef stew prepared by Mwesigwa and Catherine Lie, an Indonesian artist showing at the same venue.

“I wanted the people in my country, and other people worldwide, to celebrate our cultural diversity, break down barriers and create connections with one another, one dish at a time,” Mwesigwa says.

Darlyne Komukama, the programmes manager at 32° East, says Mwesigwa previously threw a kumanyagana at the centre in June, inviting the diasporic community in the Kabalagala area where 32° East is located.

“Uganda is Africa’s largest refugee-hosting country, with more than 1.5 million refugees within its borders. Although not all our neighbours are fleeing their home countries, they do come from all over eastern Africa, turning Kabalagala into a melting pot of South Sudanese, Sudanese, Ethiopian, Eritrean and Somali culture, especially food cultures,” she says.

Mwesigwa, 27, was raised by his mother, a tailor and a kitenge fabric retailer. She picked up domestic work abroad to “send me to the best schools”, he says, often leaving him in the hands of a guardian.

He started drawing at an early age and in 2017 attended art school at Kampala’s Makerere University.

He says he faced “a lot of doubts and backlash when he decided to be an artist”, and was his own motivation.

“Imagine being a child chasing a dream that only you can see, in a system and environment that doesn’t consider art to be a career,” he says.

Mwesigwa draws inspiration from the everyday and railings, birds, windows, books, fruits and pastries frequently turn up in his work.

The fifth edition of KLA Art is showcasing 29 artists. “This year’s cohort is filled with exceptional talents,” Mwesigwa says. His favourites include an installation by Sixte Kakinda from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose work centres around the banana tree and its place in the Nande and Konzo traditions. Another highlight is a video installation by German-Ugandan film-maker Mona Okulla Obua, who “transports us to the village of Otukwe where women engage in the artistry of making moo yao (shea oil)”.

“There is a focus on Africa right now,” says Mwesigwa. “African art is rising in value by the day and African artists get to shine on the global stage.”

He says the Ugandan art scene is vibrant and gaining traction internationally, but more exhibition space is needed.

“Some of us have been lucky to work with spaces like 32° East, and that has really helped us navigate and establish ourselves as artists,” he says.