Picha V: Uhuru - Minor accidents - Eng. M.W. Wambwa

The fifth book in the Ebifananyi series is based on the memoirs and slide collection of Engineer Martin Wangutusi Wambwa (b. 1928). He is one of the first western trained Ugandan engineers. Journalism and photography would have been his second vocational choice, had his engineering ambitions not worked out.
Uhuru (Swahili for freedom/independence) works towards and around the idea of Uganda’s independence. Wambwa’s slides show a (literally and figuratively speaking) colourful, clean and optimistic place. His memoirs take us through what it meant and took for him to be educated the way he was, leading to a climax in which things started to change from ‘Uhuru na kazi’ (Freedom and Work) to ‘Uhuru na vita’ (Freedom and War).
Three contemporary photographers were invited to engage with and respond to Wambwa’s photographs. Elsadig Mohamed (SD), Luuk van den Berg (NL) and Rumanzi Canon (UG) did this with each a different visual strategy related to their own practices as photographers.
The work presented in this book was part of the City Remixing exhibitions that took place in Uganda (March 2016) and The Netherlands (April 2016). Video documentation of the shows is also available: NL, and UG.