Sculpting shs 50, critiquing the economy: Uganda’s legal tender as a resource for art-making and meaning-making.

Abstract

This study was based on two assumptions; (1) that the point where the Shs50 mint coin, as a ̳valueless‘ currency, gained new value, as a pointed device that citizens can use to articulate their individual and collective demands for better governance, was as political as it was culturally productive; (2) that this debate could shape a sculptural project in which art-making as research and knowledge production begin to intersect. The study addressed the following overarching question, namely: in what ways (if any) would a Shs50 coin, whose loss of value gaining new meaning as a device that citizens can redeploy to fight for better governance, be explored in the production of a studio sculptural project in which the production of art is as much about activism as it is about research, meaning-making and knowledge production? I respond to this question in six chapters: In Chapter One (the Introduction) I introduced the study. Chapter Two provided the Literature Review. Chapter Three presented the methodology I used in this study. Chapter Four had the research design. In Chapter Five I followed Lwanga‘s notion of making sculpture for purposes of [self-]awakening. I responded to Objective (1) of the study and responded to the Research Question (1); I attended to Objective (2) and responded to Question (2),I have used a studio project to explore Ronex Ahimbisibwe‘s theme of humanity struggling with the weight of the burden of social, political and economic challenges. By taking it through Bbira‘s use of money for political expression and awareness, I have widened the scope of the debate on the loss of value in the Shs50 that started in the seventies, and was externally driven by the Bretton Woods Institutes. I made Oppression to the Core and Agony, Economic Dent, Cowries, Choice, The Mendicancy, Time vs Value, Economic Strides and the major work themed as obwavu mpologoma. I demonstrated that art can add to the scope of available spaces for political negotiations; it can be a productive space that allows for conscious political action on matters that make citizens desperate without resorting to the all too common acts of violence that have shaped Uganda as a modern state.

Keywords: Sculpture, Shs50 coin, Activism