32° EAST - BUILDING A NEW ARTS CENTRE

32° East will be producing and screening a series of films that share the story of building our new home. The footage will be captured by different members of our community, accompanied by poetry and illustration. 

Our centre will host six studios and a gallery, cafe, art shop, library, and meeting spaces, as well as guest and artist accommodation.  A social space for the arts, with regular exhibitions, talks and seminars welcoming a diverse mix of first time and established visitors. The centre highlights construction using sustainable materials prevalent for millennia:  rammed earth compressed into building blocks. Earth construction is a practice lost to modernity and is one of many examples of local knowledge being discarded in the name of development. As we search for new technologies to respond to a crisis of our own creation the answers may lie in the past.

Earth construction is always local, built in situ, and excavated from the ground up. The building reflects its origins and the same architectural plans could lead to something new somewhere else. What happens here can’t happen there, but can serve as an inspiration to find solutions from knowledge and experience that we forgot we had.

Artists: Martin Kharumwa and Gloria Kiconco.

Commissioned by 32° East | Ugandan Arts Trust for World Weather Network, with support from Newcastle University.

32° EAST | UGANDAN ARTS TRUST

Founded in 2011, 32° East is a centre for the creation and exploration of contemporary Ugandan art. Based in the capital, Kampala, we provide the artistic community with studio space, workshops, residencies and artist-led outreach programmes

Through supporting education, innovation and exchange we aim to support and promote contemporary Ugandan art nationally and internationally. 

32° East | Ugandan Arts Trust is a registered company limited by guarantee in Uganda. 32° East is a member of Arts Collaboratory and the Triangle Network.