Podcast Transcript: Lab Session 1 Reflections — Lobadys Pérez

Dear friends

Many things impressed me when I was in Africa for the first time. The gateway was Uganda and the meeting with incredible artists at 32 degrees was the point of important reflections.

The heterogeneity of the proposals and points of view from which they are built make Campala’s artistic production strongly related to its past and present with wide possibilities for the cultural, social, and political future that they imagine.

For me, the reflections on colonization, gender and race, have a lot to contribute to the global discussions involving these topics.

I confirm that Africa in its complexity is far from being that monolithic geography that western history has told and is instead a space from which different ways of conceiving, culture, art and development are emerging.

Uganda, and Campala in particular, is a great laboratory for artistic and social experimentation, from which global discourses will emerge to impart culture. In fact, they are already doing it.

Lastly, I welcome the existence of spaces such as 32 degrees in which it is possible to create cosmopolitan discourses, which are built with the participation of artists who come from the Global South.

For all this, I hope to return someday