Within the process of art is its greatest relevance- influence. I believe there is no greater way of influencing a thinking and feeling species than by causing them to think and feel. It is the reason entertainment is such a lucrative enterprise. It’s because most people have mastered the skill of manipulating feeling and thought, that they are the movers and instigators of change in the world; and they are changing the world. Whether for the best or not, history alone provides a perspective sufficient enough for one to make that conclusion.
It is as though we, as humanity, are forgetting that cognitive aspect that without, cannot achieve true art. Too much feeling and we then give in to sensuality alone. Too much thinking and we lose the sight of ourselves. We lose the audience we don’t know is ourselves. There must be a balance.
The definition of meaningful art, within the artistic process, entails what we know about ourselves and how that causes us to feel; and these occurrences we know. However, we aspire to truly understand how life and living brings about these emotions and feelings. We strive to understand the true construction of life in affecting us, and ourselves in being affected. We feel we need to understand who we are as well and the things that make us who we are. We are disturbed by the inconsistencies revealed, and are restless until there is an explanation.
The means to the understanding of ourselves takes many forms but also, art. We express this struggle in many forms; though science, religion but also and especially through the means of creating, as well as appreciating and understanding art.
This process and its object must be truly appreciated for a purposeful expression that is the forms of art to be realized once again in our day. It is important for ourselves as individuals today, collectively as nations and cultures, and even for the future, in the understanding of humanity and the human process of living.
The consequent issue that stems from this however, is the culture that most artists like myself wish to sing and write and dance and act in, is one that has, whether knowingly or not, abandoned the application of the thinking process of the human mind, in the presentation of art in some ways, and in some places, more than others.
One aspect is that, in the era of a globalized and culturally diverse world, the strongest influences and cultures must be regurgitated by those that are inferior. We must sing, sound and “be like” those cultures or what we have to say doesn’t count. Even if we mustn’t somehow, we unfortunately do.
Why the plan theoretically works, is because the cultural expressions of these dominant cultures have the same blue prints all cultures have in their construction; a language to understand each other among various cultural expressions, as has been through history with Greece, Rome and now the West. Like every other story in history, we might exist as the assimilated representation of all other inferior culture. We might not speak our languages, or live in huts, or graze cattle and instead speak English, live in bungalows and work as accountants, lawyers and so on; but that does not mean we cannot know ourselves. That doesn’t prevent us from the knowledge of ourselves. Even within this, we can express the knowledge of ourselves and our convictions in the process of that understanding of ourselves. It’s not a bad thing that the cultures that are dominant in his day are; it is just a thing that is. However, even in this, we should never forget we are in there somewhere, whether we know that with other languages that aren’t native to our regions, or with the languages of our ancestors.
The issue therefore arises when despite the need to know ourselves, we go about it wrongly. We aspire to make a mark in the world, but that cannot be done by bringing something that has already been brought to the international table. The best players in the game did that and now determine how the game goes. To do something like that, we must bring who we are. Just like they did once.
Not much is achieved when a country or culture shuts off the thinking process in the understanding of themselves. We must think as we sing and dance and express ourselves. We can’t just want to be like the colonizers because they colonized us and instilled the fear of themselves within us, as some cultures did during that process. We can still be “us” even with what happened and with whatever else did, and with what they impress upon us especially. Bygones are bygones; we can’t change colonization, migration, wars and their effects. But we are still in there somewhere and all we need to do is express that; who we are and what we feel because of who we are.
I don’t mean that we must express ourselves solely in the bracket of the cultural expressions of our language and dances. I mean whether by those cultural expressions or in the midst of the Western expressions introduced to us many years ago, that by trend and globalization are the “way forward” today, we still present who we are. That is the point I am trying to make the most.
In my art, I want to create human mirrors where my country and the world can see themselves. I know when we see ourselves we will be forced to feel and think, to explain our feelings and make conclusions about our thoughts.
We really don’t know who we are and how I know that so strongly, is because I don’t know myself artistically.
I believe and dream that maybe this enterprise can be a mover that equips and inspires us as people, to do what is inherently is entrenched within us; to think and feel with words, dance and music and stories. In this we will find healing, we will know truth. We will find encouragement and identity. We will for the first time, give to the world a part of ourselves and not a regurgitation showcased in the consequences of neo-colonialism. We must be reminded that we can be ourselves and that in fact, that being can be done in a language and within cultural expressions that are “not ours”. We can make what was thrust upon us ours, like the rest of the world has done.
The problem cannot be solved in a dichotomy. It is only solved in the understanding of the mosaic that our culture by globalization is. We must show our effort in being ourselves and maybe in the process, it will be perfected someday. The most important thing to be as an existence is to be that thing you were meant to be. Otherwise, your existence is nothing. The only comfort to the knowledge of that truth is conviction. Conviction takes many forms, but throughout history, its strongest form has been art.
Let us be convicted once again.
That’s all I’m trying to do for myself and maybe for another artist out there as well.
After all, just like them, I am a Ugandan and an artist; Augandanartist.
augandanartist.com 