Nommo Gallery, Uganda’s oldest public visual arts space, is set to host a groundbreaking contemporary fine art photography exhibition titled ‘Where Memory Lives’, running from July 1 to July 27, 2024.
The group exhibition will feature the evocative works of seven distinct visual artists: Miracle Okafor, Austin Tase, Uche Rita Okolie, Titilayo Samuel Olufemi, Andrew Chiedu, Charles Okweyeh, and Funmilayo Kayode.
According to the curators, the exhibition brings together a meticulously selected series of photographs that explore the deeply intertwined relationship between memory, identity, place, and the inevitable passage of time.
Moving between elements of water, weathered architecture, historical monuments, bustling marketplaces, and various sites of human presence, the showcased works consider how everyday landscapes become charged with emotional, cultural, and psychological resonance.
The collection aims to transform familiar environments into contemplative spaces where experience and imagination converge. Visitors can expect to interact with imagery of boats resting on water, public monuments, and expansive fields of colour. Rather than serving as mere subjects, these elements emerge as visual metaphors exploring continuity, transformation, belonging, and cultural inheritance.
Through careful attention to light, atmosphere, texture, and spatial relationships, the artists invite viewers into a slower, more deliberate encounter with place, revealing complex layers of meaning that extend far beyond the visible surface.
A central theme of the exhibition is the subtle, embedded trace of human presence within the landscape. Acts of labour, movement, construction, and survival are suggested rather than explicitly described, allowing the images to oscillate between the tangible and the symbolic. The photographs embrace the poignant tension between permanence and impermanence, where structures bear the physical marks of time and ordinary spaces become repositories of accumulated histories and collective memory.
“Memory is approached not as a fixed recollection of the past, but as a living presence that continues to shape our current perception, identity, and experience,” a curatorial statement reads.
By occupying the delicate space between observation and reflection, ‘Where Memory Lives’ invites the public to consider how the environments we inhabit, transform, and remember ultimately participate in shaping who we are.
The exhibition opens daily at the Nommo Gallery in Nakasero, Kampala, offering art enthusiasts, collectors, and the general public a unique opportunity to experience a visual language deeply rooted in contemporary fine art photography. Entry is free.
