In March 2024 when we organized the Tracing a Decade Symposium in collaboration with AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, the acclaimed curator N’Goné Fall gave a keynote speech about women artists and independence in Africa. Paving the way: Women artists and Independence in Africa is now published.

NEST: Network for Empowerment, Solidarity, and Transregionality is a project that will work towards building a network of independent structures working towards the inclusion of women* and non-binary artists in art historical narratives and dominant arts discourses. NEST is a project by AWARE:Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions

Deadline is Thursday, 31^st October 2024

2025-2026 programming

Requirements:

• Artist portrait
• Artist biography
• Artist statement
• Five to ten images of existing work, including copyright information, dimensions, medium and any other necessary metadata.

Please note that this call is open to Ugandan women artists at home and in the Diaspora.

At least 2 hours per week

Starting October 2024

Duty station: Hybrid

Email info@njabala.com to express interest and mention your preferred area(s).

At Njabala Foundation, we believe in the power of culture to shape societies. We welcome volunteer help in exchange for a few benefits such as networking opportunities, timely knowledge and access to paid opportunities within the organisation, growth and experience development among others.

Program Dates: January-June 2025

ICI, in partnership with Njabala Foundation and AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, is offering a 6-month mentorship program for emerging female-identifying curators based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, themed “Curating as multiplying mediation and access to culture.”

Monday, 5^th August 2024

2:00 PM

We have conceived a couple of products within the fundraiser that you are welcome to explore. The Njabala Talks enable you to know about Njabala Foundation work through a series of free virtual talks from August through September 2024. The first talk is scheduled for Monday, 5th August 2024, at 2:00 pm, featuring the dynamic Njabala Team. During this session, our team members will share their experiences, discuss the foundation's journey over the past three years, and outline our future goals and initiatives.

Creating safe spaces for Women Artists to blossom

Your support is crucial. By joining us in this fundraiser, you help ensure the survival and growth of Njabala Foundation for the next five years and beyond. Together, we can make a lasting impact on the arts community.

Deadline is Thursday, 15^th August 2024

PROGRAM DATES: JANUARY-JUNE 2025

ICI, in partnership with Njabala Foundation and AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, is offering a 6-month mentorship program for emerging female-identifying curators based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, themed “Curating as multiplying mediation and access to culture.”

Karibu project is conceived as an alternative space to accommodate indigenous art forms such as crafts, folk songs, storytelling etc. Previously we have found the visual arts lens rather restrictive and often exclusive. Close/Karibu is the space inbetween, close to art but not quite, yet representative of many communities who have not necessarily tapped the visual arts.

Friday, 8^th March 2024 to Saturday, 23^rd March 2024

At Makerere Art Gallery

Now in its third edition, the Annual Njabala Exhibition (ANE) 2024 titled Njabala: An elegy presents an emotionally stirring art exhibition dedicated to exploring the theme of grief through the artistic lens of women artists. Each artist will share her narrative, inviting visitors to engage with the universal emotions surrounding loss, healing and transformation. The ANE 2024 goes beyond mere artistic expression; it is a poignant invitation for attendees to embark on a collective journey of healing and connection.

Friday, 8^th March 2024 to Saturday, 9^th March 2024

At Makerere University(CTF building), Kampala, Uganda

Tracing a Decade: Women Artists of the 1960s in Africa focuses on the often-overlooked contributions of women artists during this pivotal decade across the African continent. The symposium illuminates the paths and works of women artists whose practice has been blurred for decades and whose contributions to early postcolonial narratives are yet to be recognized. Guided by a set of key questions, the researchers investigate the identities and stories of women artists from the 1960s, uncover the intricacies of their creative processes, and explore how they navigated the artistic landscape of the changing Africa. Additionally, the symposium examines the thematic concerns and reception of women artists’ work during a time of socio-political transformation.

Meet the Winners

Since 2021 we have been launching the Annual Open Call for Ugandan Women Artists to partner for the subsequent year programming.In October 2023 we received several applications from Ugandan women artists at various stages of their career and working across diverse media.Meet the multidisciplinary set of selected artists for the 2024 - 2025 programming. Projects emerging from the winners of the Annual Njabala Open Call will be relayed in our periodic newsletters and other information platforms in the months leading to the Annual Njabala Exhibition to be held in March 2025.

Deadline is Tuesday, 31^st October 2023

Programming could mean a wide spectrum of events and activities to be implemented through 2024 - 2025.

To give you an idea, previous successful candidates have participated in programming such as our Annual Njabala Exhibition which takes place every March (we launched this in 2022 - see links in bio to see past editions, and preparations for the 2023 edition are underway), other exhibitions abroad, residencies, research projects, mentorship programs etc.

Friday, 9^th June 2023

Over the first half of the year, we have been reclaiming the work of women artists such as Kenyan playwright Rebeka Njau drawing connections between artistic practice in the 1960s and the contemporary moment. For the symposium, artists Charity Atukunda, Letaru Dralega, Liz Kobusinge, and Viola Nimuhamya delve into the practices of Betty Manyolo (1938 - 1999), Theresa Musoke, Rebeka Njau (b. 1932), and Rosemary Karuga (1928 - 2021).

Introducing Phase one of our research project on Women artists from the 1960s.

Pillars of Rectitude (January - September 2023)

The Pillars of Rectitude project aims to reclaim time for East African women artists whose work has undergone systematic erasure thereby inspiring the young generation of female East African artists. How can reclaiming the work of women artists such as Tanzanian artist Abubakar Fatma Abdullah and Kenyan playwright Rebeka Njau draw connections between discrimination against women in the 1960s and 2020s and open spaces to rethink forms of curation that will break a cycle of erasure and instead cherish and protect women artists' voices in contemporary East Africa?

Monday, 17^th April 2023

Online

Virtual artist talk with Lilian Mary Nabulime & Martha Kazungu as discussant.

Joined by Martha Kazungu as a discussant, Lilian Mary Nabulime will give a virtual artist talk in an event organised by SOAS and the Almas Foundation. Nabulime, despite being one of Uganda’s greatest women sculptors, is hardly known on a global scale. She is a Senior Lecturer at Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Art at Makerere University, principally teaching Sculpture.

Join us this Saturday for the exhibition walkabout of

Njabala: Holding space!

An exhibition on rest, care & labour

The 2023 iteration titled Njabala: Holding Space is an exhibition about the efforts to rest and organize time in a world designed to constantly exploit women. Inspired by Njabala folklore's portrayal of Njabala as the “lazy girl”, the exhibition explores (mis)interpretations of rest, care and labor, especially in a Ugandan context. Ugandan artist Pamela Enyonu as well as the three artists who were accepted for the Annual Njabala Open Call of 2021 namely Birungi Kawooya, Mable Akeu and Pepita Biraaro have been reflecting on the themes through 2022 and have made new works for the exhibition.

Wednesday, 8^th March 2023

Njabala: Holding space!

An exhibition on rest, care & labour

Location: Makerere Art Gallery

The Annual Njabala Exhibition (ANE) is the main event on the Njabala Foundation’s calendar. Centered on and inspired by the Njabala folklore,ANE seeks to facilitate visibility for women artists through thematically curated exhibitions exclusively featuring women artists. The first iteration of ANE was held on 8th March 2022.

Deadline is Thursday, 17^th February 2022

Terms & requirements

Start Date: March 1st 2023

Job Title: Programs Manager

Job duration: 12 months, with a possibility to extend

Working hours: Part time - 8 hours, 3 days a week

Location: Kampala, Uganda

January 2023

Announcing results from the 2022 Annual Njabala Foundation Open call for artists

November 2022

This November at Njabala Foundation, we are actively planning towards the Njabala Annual Exhibition of 2023. We are elated to announce that Phoebe Boswell is currently mentoring Ugandan artist Mable Akeu towards a body of work anticipated for the exhibition

Starting September 2022

Njabala Foundation is delighted to announce our first Artist Residency Programme where we welcomed Birungi Kawooya in Uganda for five months starting September 2022.

Birungi’s ongoing residency has been tailored to provide for her specific needs as a Ugandan - British artist with the urge to indulge with her own roots and culture. By living in Uganda for about 5 months, at her studio at Afroposcene space, with the support of five mentors, she is looking to develop her storytelling whilst learning to use ensansa (palm leaves), lubogo (Bark cloth), Kiganda dance, ebyaayi (banana fibre) and sewing in her artwork.

Deadline is Sunday, 30^th October 2022

Its October, the time of the year when we send out our annual call for women artists ahead of our 2023 - 2024 programming. Following our open call in October 2021, in which three Ugandan women artists namely Pepita Biraaro, Mable Akeu and Birungi Kawooya emerged successful, we are launching the annual call for Ugandan women artists until the end of October 2022.

Njabala the Ugandan myth to facilitate conversations on womanhood

In the week of 8th March 2022, when we launched the Njabala Foundation in Kampala with a magnificent exhibition at Makerere Art Gallery, our founder was interviewed by Fari Sow of Moleskine Foundation about the mission and relevance of Njabala Foundation and its projects.

Saturday, 10^th September 2022 to Sunday, 8^th January 2023

Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg

Yes, we want all people to have the same rights and opportunities! Yes, we want to use art to raise awareness and to enable sustainable and effective encounters! Yes, we want to contribute to equality and to encourage and empower people who are marginalized or affected by discrimination. And yes, the world would be a better place if we were all feminists: „We Should All Be Feminists!“ (C. N. Adichie). The exhibition Empowerment brings together diverse feminist approaches and understands these as a progressive methods to analyze the societies of the world with the means of art and to show possible ways out of the global crises. For the first time, around 100 artistic positions offer a comprehensive global overview of art and feminisms of the 21st century - from around 50 countries from all continents.

Saturday, 10^th September 2022 to Sunday, 8^th January 2023

At the bottom of the world’s social hierarchy is the black woman. While universally seen as ‘strong and enduring’, she is truly the most vulnerable and unprotected of all women. She has been forced to bear innumerable burdens in a way that continues to be profoundly culturally toxic and abusive to her psyche. Pamela Enyonu seeks to reclaim the woman’s story from the invisible hands that write, rejecting the prevailing narratives and fictionalized, fetishized versions of women and give lead to more powerful versions of womanhood.

Virtual Artists’ Residency in collaboration with Njabala Foundation and Black Art Brazil

Having announced the successful applicants to the virtual residency, we are happy to commence the residency programme this September. The inaugural lectures will take place on 6th September at 7pm Brazil time with two American Professors:

Thursday, 18^th August 2022

Uganda Museum Auditorium - Free entrance

Join us in person from 2-6pm on August 18 for the Curatorial Intensive in Kampala Public Symposium. The Intensive participants – 13 international emerging curators – will present the exhibition and project proposals they have developed throughout the course of the eight-day professional development program.

Virtual Artists’ Residency in collaboration with Njabala Foundation and Black Art Brazil

On invitation by Independent Curator, Historian and Museologist Patrícia Brito, Njabala Foundation is pleased to announce a collaboration with Black Art Brazil on their second Virtual Artists’ Residency.

Saturday, 10^th September 2022 to Sunday, 8^th January 2023

At least two artists will be exhibited in an exhibition conceived by Njabala Foundation on invitation by Moving School in Kassel. Njabala foundation would like to propose an artistic production and exhibition featuring two artists’ works - Samba Gown by Sandra Suubi and Little Black Dress short film by Esteri Tebandeke.

Njabala Foundation is pleased to announce a prestigious collaboration with Belgium based gallery called Duende Art Projects to showcase the work of Lilian Nabulime in the Unsettled exhibition which opened within the Antwarp art weekend. Unsettled” is an ode to restlessness.

Tuesday, 8^th March 2022

The session will take place on the morning of 8.03.2022 as a precursor event to other programming around the exhibition opening of the show Njabala-This is not how which will happen later in the day.

Tuesday, 8^th March 2022

The Njabala Foundation is pleased to announce a series of events taking place on 8th March 2022 to mark the foundation launch at Makerere Art Gallery.

Citing the International Women’s Day theme this year #BreakTheBias, Echo minds poets will join the rest of the world in a poetic show to redefine themselves and change the narrative.

Archive reading with Beatrice Wanjiku and Martha Kazungu reminiscing on Mariana's voice in The Scar, a play written by Rebecca Njau in the early 1960s and published in the Transition Magazine in March 1963.

Njabala was featured in A history of women artists which took place at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris in partnership with the Forum Generation Equality.

Martha Kazungu presented a paper on the Njabala project in Reclaim:Narratives of African women Artists symposium.