Let the Confusion Stir Your Curiosity
Andrea Stultiens
25/10/2025
OVER Journal
#4
2
minutes to read
Article
On the entanglement of identities, photographs, and other likenesses.
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Luganda is the Bantu language of the Baganda, who are subjects of the Kabaka (King) of Buganda. Currently, the language is widely used in South Central Uganda. In Luganda, a photograph, or any other two-dimensional referential depiction for that matter, would be signified with the word ekifananyi, which in English translates as “a likeness”. Throughout this text, the word likeness will be used when referring to an image written in light, instead of the more common understanding of a photograph, to enable a rethinking, an alternative conceptualisation of seemingly all-too familiar types of image objects. It is also preferred by the author to apply the word 'produced' instead of 'made', 'taken' or 'shot' as it opens up the implication of presumed authorship concerning photographs.
Introduction
Working with the likenesses in the Ham Mukasa2 and Kaddu Wasswa3 collections, respectively, has not only influenced my understanding of photography in Uganda but has also shaped the person I am today. As my involvement in the mediation of Uganda's past and present through likenesses evolved, through the archiving and activation of historical likenesses produced in Uganda and several long- term collaborations, most notably with Ugandan elder Kaddu Wasswa (b. 1933) and artist R. Canon Griffin (b. 1991), my own photographic practice shifted while it led to a reappraisal of my sense of belonging...Read the full article in the printed issue. Get OVER Journal 4
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About
Andrea Stultiens
Andrea Stultiens (NL, 1974) is an artist, researcher and teacher. Initially developing a practice founded on documentary photography, in the past fifteen years, her practice shifted to collective-artistic research methods focusing on the imaginations of Africa in general and Uganda in particular. Stultiens also teaches at the bachelor's and master's programs in photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.
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Footnotes
1 The title is a sentence from a poem by Ugandan elder Kaddu Wasswa (1933) addressing his grandchildren in an effort to explain to them the nature of his writing and other documentation related to his life. Kaddu Wasswa performs the full text of the poem in a film that also serves as a making off of our second book The Ttabo, self-published and made on Nasser Road, Kampala, in 2019.
2 Ham Mukasa (ca.1870-1956) was born as the son of a prominent chief in the kingdom of Buganda, he fought in the religious wars which erupted in the wake of colonialism. He learned how to read and write from early missionaries and converted to Christianity. He continued to study all his life and held an important chieftaincy in Buganda when Uganda was a British protectorate. Ham Mukasa was well connected in the elite, both of Buganda, neighbouring kingdoms and British colonials and missionaries.
3 Kaddu Wasswa (1933) was born as the only son of a rural peasant family. He had limited access to formal education, but continues to study the world around him. Over the decades he worked numerous jobs alongside practicing his passion for social work.
