Master Class: Kampala Exchange
Today was the first day of a three day long workshop held at at the Goethe Centrum in Kampala. Kampala Exchange is a part of the 'Kampala as a City of Reguge' project which will be presented as part of the 'This is not a Refugee Cam Exhibition' in the Architecture Museum, Munich early next year. Mpho Matsipa (Wits City Institute, Johannesburg) is the curator of the exhibition. Prior to the exhibition, she is collaborating with architects across the region to put together workshops as part of the wider project
Doreen Adengo, an architect and researcher, will be hosting the workshop in Kampala. Her practice will be partnering with Will Monteith to prepare the 'City of Refuge' project for the exhibition exploring the participation of refugees in Kampala's markets. Emanuel Admassu, an architect and assistant professor at RISD , New York) is co-leading and critiquing the workshop .
This workshop will involve architects (at various levels of training), photographers, visual artists and film producers; together we will explore methods of representing Urban African environments (particularly local markets) through mixing various visual tools. The entire process will be valuable for my own research. At the start, we were given an assignment entitled 'DRAWING THE MARKETS OF KAMPALA' to include photography, drawings and argument which were to be presented at the end of the workshop. Over the last few months, I have been sharing my project with Doreen; she invited me to join the workshop and also present my design and research project to the participants of the event.
DAY ONE
Anne Ackermann Photography lecture
Anne presented photographs and accompanying stories from one of her projects 'Behind Veils and Walls' . She described the invisible lives of refugees living in Kampala in ''Little Mogadishu'' (known officially as Kisenyi and home to many Somali Refugees in Kampala ; it is a major trading area, south of Owino market). Her striking photographs followed a few protagonists within the community. The images conveyed all kinds of emotions and feelings, some distressing, reflecting the harsh past experiences of the protagonists, but others light and joyful, reflecting the rich cultures expressed by groups of the Somali's living in Kampala. Her perspective as a 'woman' and a 'foreigner' allowed her to share intimate moments with the women she photographed. She encouraged us all to push to document and record memories of places in Uganda using out own particular insights and unique perspectives. Anne also shared some practical tips about taking photographs to assist us with our upcoming photography assignment.
More about Anne Ackermanns's work can be found on her website here; http://www.anneackermann.com/
Photo walking tours around Kampala's markets
For the photography part of the assignment, we were asked to choose ''specific element(s)—architectural, natural or infrastructural—that are altering your perception of the market ''' -in either Owino or Nakasero Market . A series of guiding questions and examples helped with this task and the output would be five ''5X5'' black and white photographs and a 50 word argument to go along with them.
With the task on mind, we proceeded to split into two groups - one went to Owino Market the other Nakasero. I went with the Owino Market group and used one of my contacts in the market to help us navigate the market. Due to the size of the group, our contact asked us to report the police, who sent us to the management to get permission to take photographs; after getting permission, we split into three smaller groups with some vendors and started out photography excercise. The vendors in our groups ( speaking for my group, at least) helped us to reassure other vendors in areas we were photographing that we were not there to harm them in anyway, just students doing some research!
I tried to put aside my own research into Owino and observe the market afresh for this exercise. I focused on individual trading booths primarily for transferring money but also with various other functions. I was interested in these elements as they are found spread across market in deliberate and accessible positions. Through their multiple functions, they link and network people of and outside of the market together,
My 5 Photographs:
On the walking tour
Emanuel Admassu's Public Lecture
In the filer advertising this lecture, I read that Emanuel ''has been researching the constructed identities of markets in East Africa'', this intrigued me as I rarely come across architects researching/designing in African markets. Emanuel completed an Advanced Architecture degree studying Merkato , the largest market in Addis Ababa and has since continued researching this market and has also used it for a design studio he teaches in RISD. He talked about the changing nature of the market over its history. For example, he described the resistance of traders to being contained in particular trading spaces as seen with trading activity spilling out onto the street from concrete framed shops in the city. He showed some of his students design projects andspecific factors they explored such as the 'speed of movement' and resulting architectural response that entails a series of ramps. He briefly mentioned some work he has been doing over the last 2 years documenting Kaarioko Market in Dar Es Salaam (really interesting for me as I will be going to Dar es Salaam Next month and will visit Kaarioko market!). I have just picked out his work on markets, but Emanuel also mentioned some of his other research and projects too.
An article on Emanuel Admassu's Merkato work here: http://www.arpajournal.net/menged-merkato/
