Paper short abstract:

Barkcloth produces images and imaginations of indigeneity, nationalism and African pride while adopting additional meanings within a global art/design market and discourses of environmental sustainability. This paper analyzes this convergence within the urban context of Kampala.

Paper long abstract:

Historically seasoned technologies and aesthetics are experiencing a revival in many African societies, often as part of a post- and decolonial reclamation of history and historiography. At the same time, they tend to deliberately relate to global contemporary discourses and debates such as climate change, de-colonial movements, neo-liberal markets and the revaluation of the 'community'. Long-standing and sometimes even forgotten African technologies are re-discovered and celebrated, re-activated and employed by contemporary artists within a framework that exceeds the local or national field and deliberately seeks global markets while emphasizing their local origin and cultural meanings. In this process, they adopt different aesthetics, functions and identities within local and transnational contexts as their cultural perception and reception vary between urban and rural, national and international, indigenous and foreign contexts. The current revival of barkcloth in Uganda is a case in point as it is situated exactly in this convergence. It relates to cultural practices at the court of the Kabaka (and beyond) in pre-colonial, colonial and contemporary Buganda and thereby experiences a valuation not only in local indigenist movements but also within an expanded tourist, expat, art and design market. This paper will present the different contexts in which barkcloth produces images and imaginations of indigeneity, nationalism and African pride while adopting additional meanings within a global market and discourses of environmental sustainability.