My name is Yiga Joshua mulungi a visual contemporary artist in Uganda,” Zadde” Is one of the concepts am working on with a desire to restore our own indigenous art, zadde means a child however the actual representation of this is embodied in a banana fibre, arranged and put together to make a doll which was and is used but children, they refer to these as real children of their own. The history about this doll is common in the central region of Uganda,it is believe that boredom and luck of playing items made children to come of With ideal and hence solving a problem, however this has lived on for centuries,
however modernization had partly eroded this art and introduced other play tools, Children in the past
were taught to respect and treat these dolls as their own children and this helped in their upbringing, Yiga believes that “the imagination of a real baby in the mind of a girl child was a doll, an he believes, we were once dolls in the minds of our Mothers when they were young before the real world unveiled.
ABOUT THE PAINTING
“Ffe” which means “US” Is a serie of two paintings known as meelu and Madugave which means a girl and boy. , these paintings give a brief representation of our creation in the doll forms,during the creation of these dolls they had the art and the freedom to build what gender they wanted by twisting , shapes, and you can tell a male from a female, OBULAMU, This is a series of 3pcs , which convey the story of my and the community I grew up in, it also reflects the dreams , Life is a series of moments,these are captured in the back ground of my painting in a child like way, “mwe”means “you”. (with pink background) reflects the life I saw girls in my community living inclusive of my very own sisters , “ffe” means “we “. (Baby blue background) This paints a picture of moments i lived as a child and while growing, “Ebilooto”, means “dreams” Like any human we have dreams and on several
occasions our dreams can be similarly with other people’s, this painting embodies the dreams of a young Man Yiga,