Paper Beads on the Move

Beads cannot simply be viewed as nonrepresentational, decorative entities. In Uganda, the art of paper bead[ing] is empowering women economically while mobilizing new trajectories that reflect the intersecting and shifting landscapes of public space and private space to shape inquiry into gender relationships, art, art-making, and politics.Yet paper beads tend to be placed in the broader category of craft, a socially constructed category that views beads as mere decorative objects used for “ornamentation on clothing and household objects” (Labelle 2005: 12), “deemed to be of less value and therefore ignored” (Aronson 1991: 551), and as a result assigned a low aesthetic status. In Uganda, the missionary, artist, and art instructor Margaret Katherine Trowell (1947)1 similarly held that there was no evidence of representational art, regarding beadwork in East Africa instead as nonrepresentational art. She noted that “pattern-work chiefly of geometric form, [is] found worked out in almost every type of material” (Trowell 1947: 2) and argued that, although the craftspeople behind this art did not work in professional guilds, they were skilled, respected among their communities, and enjoyed privileges because they produced a kind of decorative art that was highly revered by local communities, applied on domestic utensils, and used as personal adornment, including the “masses of beads and metal worn on the neck, arms, and legs, show[ing] a tremendous appreciation of decorative values” (Trowell 1947: 2–3). These views persisted mainly because the power undergirding them was wielded within the epistemic modes of Western intellectual thought (Arowosegbe 2014) that favor a hierarchical classification of arts and crafts.However, by the late 1960s and 1970s the hierarchies of art and decorative crafts and their links to women's exclusion from the art scene came under scrutiny. Western scholarship, particularly, started to take an interest in African art and crafts (Kellman 1996), yet at the expense of inquiry into aspects of aesthetic content, use, skill, material, and techniques. The George W. Harley Collection at the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, MA (Reswick 1972), the Culture and Decorative Arts of Africa collection in the Indianapolis Museum of Art (Ross 1976), the African Beadwork: Traditional Symbols exhibition at the Tambaran Gallery, New York (Reif 1991), all signaled the arrival of African beadwork into research, museums, and exhibitions. Although, due to the new scholarly attention to what had been called African folk art, beads began to figure in art exhibitions and research that focused on the beads' aesthetic and technological quality, this general shift in African art scholarship has not extended to reviewing bead work as a means to change women's sense of self and allow them to refigure their identities from within the constructions of public and private spheres. Yet as beads circulate, they combine and recombine through form, material, and processes, while exposing multiple subjectivities that undermine socially predetermined constructions to transform beads into “objects of inquiry with a life of their own”(Kakande and Kasozi 2016).In this article, I examine the ways in which paper beads and the process of beading, implicated as symbolic conventions of the private, become the very means deployed by women to negotiate private and public spaces while overwriting normative conventions of these spaces to shape creative thinking in research and art. I engaged in ethnographic research in Kireka Banda, Zone B,2 a suburb of Kampala, where I found women producing paper beads in their home spaces and selling their beadwork in the city. Using in-depth interviews and field observation, I reexamined paper bead(ing) processes and methods, materials and tools, and the sequence whereby women deployed their paper beads to tap into their artistic and cultural sensibilities to modify beads' traditional definitions (Sciama and Eicher 1998) while producing meaning that points to the gap between beads as detached entities to beads as research entities. This meaning illuminates notions of spatial mobility, where each paper bead-making stage becomes a means to question the boundaries of private and public spaces, and art-making addresses the links paper beads make in popular culture, media, and art. Furthermore, I trace these new connections in artworks by Gateja Sanaa that implicate paper beads in broader debates on gender, power, identity, and Ugandan politics to expand the margins of beads as craft, contemporary art, and research. This article deploys a multidisciplinary theoretical framework borrowing lenses from critical theory (Kopytoff 1986) and feminist and social theories of art (Gell 1998) to draw linkages that reposition beads as art and research through close reading, content analysis, and cross referencing.Information on the history of paper beads is rather scanty. European accounts of the early twentieth century (Logan 2001, Lome 2016) suggest that paper beads were made from wallpaper offcuts that women rolled to make jewelry and curtain blinds. Classified among needlework parlor crafts, beadwork was encouraged to present an image of appropriately feminine behavior (Lome 2016). Women produced beads as a pastime, firmly fixed in the private sphere (Logan 2001), where the finished beaded products were a demonstration of talent to be displayed and used in the home. By 1917 the Modern Priscilla,3 a women's magazine, had started to print tutorials on making paper beads.Available evidence suggests that Sanaa Gateja introduced paper beads to Uganda in 1990. Gateja is a contemporary Ugandan artist born in 1950 in Kisoro, western Uganda. His life is a journey itself, marked by travels across Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Japan, Italy, and London. These travels, he says, exposed him to diverse cultures, presenting learning opportunities that strengthened his resolve to explore African experiences and materials.Gateja's paper bead(ing) journey, however, did not start in Uganda, although he worked professionally as an Assistant Crafts Officer at the Ministry of Culture and Community development in the 1970s. He first encountered beads in Mombasa, Kenya, where he operated Sanaa Gallery and worked as an artist and jeweler. In 1982, he moved to Italy, where he trained in interior design at the Internazionale dell'Arte in Florence, and in 1983 he relocated to London and joined the John Cass College of Art (now the London College of Art and Design), where he received a City and Guilds diploma in gold- and silver-smithing in 1985. In London he also pursued an apprenticeship with an eminent Japanese jeweler, Tomazo Yashimoto.While in London, Gateja4 acquired a large quantity of paper products that he kept at his apartment, including paper board cores from tissue paper, newsprint, magazine adverts, invitation brochures, and cards. He experimented with them and recycled them into materials for producing different forms of art: jewelry, tapestries and wall decorations, and wearable art.5 He experimented with collages, as well as assorted paper forms and shapes. He cut and refashioned the paperboard cores into interesting triangular shapes, which he discussed with his instructor at the London College of Art and Design. It was during one of these discussions that his instructor introduced Gateja to paper beads, which she said were made in a manner similar to the Egyptian technology of hammering and rolling iron to make tubes.6 Gateja took the beads back to his apartment and assessed them for similarities and differences with the forms he had built from the paperboard cores. He also researched the origins of paper beads and in the process learned that the beads emerged as a home craft during the Victorian era (1837–1901) and experienced a renaissance during World War II due to scarcity of materials. As Gateja explains, “I learnt that when people do not have anything, they will use anything around them to make adornments, which is very much like an African situation.”7Against this backdrop, when Gateja returned to Uganda in 1989, he popularized paper beads as prime materials for his art-making by taking them through experimental recycling processes. He currently operates an art studio, Kwetu Afrika Women's Association, in Lubowa, Kampala, and works with women who produce paper beads (Figs. 1–2) that he buys back in bulk. Through this paper bead-making project, Gateja has created opportunities for economic empowerment for many women, like Aidah Mukisa.8The context of mobility discussed here considers the ways in which women's paper bead(ing) practices mobilize new meaning. Where African art scholarship has tended to ignore women's creative sensibilities (Labelle 2005), in this section I examine women's paper bead(ing) processes, methods, materials, and spaces, focusing on the sequence through which women deploy their paper beads as a means of power and influence to negotiate and refigure public space, which is gendered as male, and private space, gendered as female, to demand new representation within the constructs that define women and beadwork. By virtue of its rootedness in the narrative of the everyday, women's beadwork taps into and opens up academic inquiry about daily living and surrounding objects (Kellman 1996: 37). Paper bead(ing) becomes critical in generating a way for women as creative actors and producers to elaborate and extend knowledge in which multiple narratives about the private and public can coexist to inform scholarly understandings of cultural dynamics. This knowledge exposes the multiple subjectivities of paper beads. In this context, paper beads are powerfully reconstructed as a means to comment on and critique practices that women might agree or disagree with, giving them the opportunity to propose their own alternatives. It is within this context that paper beads illuminate notions of mobility to make new connections that shape scholarly debates on art, research, and gendered spaces.Women's mobility in Uganda has been very complicated since the advent of the colonial period in 1900, which brought with it what was known as the “hut tax” regime. This tax obligation increased the tax burden on polygamous families, especially those that owned several homes. Many men, as heads of households, returned to monogamy to reduce their tax burden. While some women found themselves without “husbands” as a result (Tumusiime 2017: 58–68), others moved into the city—ekibuga Kampala.9 Kampala is the capital city of Uganda, which emerged out of negotiations over power, and by acquired different that created new ways of the an space of power, a by and the the from a also means to and mobility of and power the multiple and of to of By Kampala had become a the of the many women who took of their mobility and to the city to in this public period up to the is also very in the history of Ugandan It was marked by the of and during which many in and Many women were to become creative in their economic with had or been moved into the In 1989, in an to an economic as a result of Uganda introduced and through the and the World These opportunities that several cultural and including in Paper to in of and African in among These under to women's paper beads on the and paper beads into research about women in and Beads a means to an It to women as the and heads of households, understandings of public and private space has been as a for and In women who work in the home domestic as and producing for their are and the of paper bead(ing) by women in this space a change in of gender and a critique of gendered spatial expand the of normative conventions about the home. In in the into the private the home becomes much a gendered This new meaning and Eicher 1998) that beads from the of mere decorative objects and them as objects that reflect women's of ways to negotiate and modify their daily This in an with who works from home and beads in the where I As she explains, “I produce paper from home on a daily as I also do like and for the I to beads in the was born in in Uganda. the when she was at very to Kampala and of a of women who were to there to the The women in the suburb of and they make paper beads to in the through Zone I found a of women making paper beads in their homes. on and in they made of paper beads in Paper beads on in and on clothing bead from one home to The women in to produce beads while and while their experiences allow women to to and to about their an of private space is also a space for social with these women, I their and the ways in which they domestic as within the while spaces were and as for the of paper bead-making As the women's normative gender paper beads objects of inquiry that constructs as they new ways of the women of paper to make beads I by this process of bead is a sense of as the women to mobilize paper materials from and in the city. the bead-making process by on craft, or and and These are cut or the of the triangular over a or the is rolled the women their to work their way around the to that its are in and The a that forms a the as a of is placed over the of the and over the rolled The beads are the and on or the beads are into they are The are or by a I some beads into in large and that the on the paper is in the The of household objects as for this of domestic objects in to women and domestic space (Figs. of are applied to a (Figs. The of beads are out in an to are and in 2) for into including and of aesthetic paper beads are highly are created through learned from especially women who have trained at a beadwork The women use a of with in created through the and or by on the women to the The women also that beaded and paper bead are very popular and are The women were of the beads' and the to them were also that to beads. to a in where the women take their to be cut in finished bead are in the city 12), while others are to local craft as Uganda Art and and Africa in In paper beads are through as an in Kireka that an to paper beads on the 2014) in the and where they a broader economic the of women in paper bead-making for this suggests that the that beads are objects to be through the of paper beads, women are their the social the of to the household when she paper beads much to from them cannot I to for and since in this narrative is the of meaning is assigned to In The of that the of objects are to social context as well as and as the assigned to objects change in to own and In of and the with paper beads are as these shift through space and in and out of In this beads no are to that of their are different aspects each the beads are and into personal accounts can illuminate of mobility, especially the assigned to are or that the of objects have are a of social context and and can in and out of objects are and are This not at the of and also in their This in meaning by boundaries in the context of the The is that paper beads are to the women in to the of that they in in where beads as nonrepresentational the beadwork in this the very means by which women into their creative The women, through their beads, power to demand new representation that their own of becomes a of broader and creative thinking in a way that the women to their and In this the women their design by their they have been to an or and for their within the of a context women at the in the of their experiences in Art and attention to the of objects as of social His thinking an of the that art He that can of their within their art and at the constructed to new ways of or these and Kasozi 2016) to social In this I examine paper bead(ing) becomes a that constructs about beads and at the them to illuminate ways of constructs to shape I Sanaa art and artistic in which he paper beads as the prime in his art, to and about of power, gender, and Through his artistic he the margins of beads and beadwork is in scholarship through the hierarchical classification of arts and crafts, use of paper beads in his art him to tap into the beads' aesthetic as well as their social and cultural meaning. an early the art of was in since I up around and Gateja His with materials as and beads not allow him to that materials as entities of he also these materials as and means to the African from in 1989, Gateja in of He a jewelry in from the In Gateja the and to paper beads. He wallpaper and used in from and back to where he started his first paper bead in Uganda. he worked with women who he had the art of Gateja returned to Kampala in to the paper bead art exhibition at the He has created art and wearable art and (Figs. which he has in and at the Museum in His work also in the Museum of Modern Art in New Art Gallery and public spaces around the an artist, Gateja his art through recycling and from his home space he a of He his with paper beads, and He the and mobility of the materials and their in daily them into art materials. In Gateja that the meaning of his materials, at the the boundaries of art. His him to by beads as that he through and This him to the boundaries of art and the of beads as decorative By definitions in ways that new he art that in social This is what art its of the women's of In for is a of his and it is also about the women he works with and their to the Ugandan This which he with and shapes, him to to work with of and by a he Gateja this to or where a is in that are or to Gateja that this him to and at the diverse to shape his and In his large artworks on with and beads, Gateja and African as This process not simply materials and to make In all these Gateja paper beads to the margins of art, the spatial processes of mobility, in which beads are as a means of research and artistic Gallery in Kampala the exhibition Gateja discussed the ways in which and new spaces that to with their In this Gateja used paper beads as art forms and materials to present In a representation of a figure in an with to suggest that the figure is In this paper beads in of were used to the exclusion and that many women in Uganda. interest is the of the are not they are of she is in Gateja is is the which is from the domestic in of this In to many women in Uganda who are the boundaries of the domestic In also women on and about their in and academic (Tumusiime Gateja that where paper beads are in a to the image of a traditional male, is the of a as The figure is with its and in a is close to the in The and The In these artworks Gateja the power and of the of in his use of beads as in his a similar He the power of the in in his a of and the in which he beads as and to the of the Gateja that what the figure in is the in its with the Gateja to the held in many African that means to be a a and a who has over women's and relationships, he the ways in which Gateja to these in the at the Africa of Art and in New where he with New artist to power as a In and Gateja is with the ways in which in power in Africa have a similar in his which In the of the the of the during to those in power and the to the are as of of power, and In the paper bead in the of the Ugandan the and are worn by a figure and are used to for and to critique in the this backdrop, the on power in figure and use of paper beads to critique was The of paper beads, their to in and out of relationships, has paper beads to new and to This and mobility is of paper beads. It the beads' to and different at different figure in is the one in which a is through feminine and beads worn around to the way traditional African women these beads to of and for and born in of the of Gateja with his to This is of the he to in The power of from its and from its use of materials, as and in a new like the wearable art displayed at the Uganda Museum the of and its with in into a of art. Gateja with with that their way in to are produced to about the cultural in was also in the exhibition and in Art in and by the Gallery of in and to the of and at in Uganda and the in In these contemporary materials, their on the of The exhibition an of a in where is a that as the with that is to the the traditional the the and that with also within the process of of people or This exhibition also placed women at the of 2017: to of of and in East Africa and is interesting about artistic journey in to paper beads as art is the context in which he paper beads to reflect social constructions while at the these beads to ways of or the By virtue of his use of beads to shape his art and art he paper beads out of the fixed where they are as detached and to become research entities with a life of their own for knowledge and 2016) in Uganda and Western art history to beads to the of I in this article that paper beads are and In that paper beads are not in their through notions of the private and paper beads shape and are as socially means of power and influence and women's social paper bead(ing) becomes a means for them to tap into their creative sense within the of to their own of In the paper bead(ing) exposes the of power, shifting boundaries as well as views of private and public This paper beads' and their to in and out of where the beads different in different of space and is a of that beads can take on while conventions in which new trajectories are that shape art. as for research, as and as processes that new in art for knowledge as paper bead(ing) in space and it has new and on the of the mobility of arts and crafts in Uganda

Aesthetics · Art · Geography · Sociology · Crafts, Textile, and Design · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Gender Studies

• "Wicked" Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa

  Dorothy L Hodgson, Sheryl A Mccurdy•"Wicked" Women and the…•2001

  Add to list

• Art And Agency

  Alfred Gell•Art and agency•1998

  Add to list

• The cultural biography of things

  Open Access•Igor Kopytoff•Social Life of Things•1986

  Add to list

• The Social Life of Things

  Open Access•Arjun Appadurai•Social Life of Things•1986

  Add to list

• Beads and Bead Makers

  Lidia D Sciama, Joanne Bubolz Eicher•Beads and Bead Makers•2011

  Add to list

• African Encounters with Domesticity

  Karen Tranberg Hansen•African Encounters with Domesticity•1992

  Add to list

• African studies and the bias of Eurocentricism

  Jeremiah O Arowosegbe•Social Dynamics•2014

  Add to list

• The Royal Capital of Buganda

  Peter C W Gutkind, Audrey I Richards•Royal Capital of Buganda•1963

  Add to list

• Alex Baine's Women's Emancipation in Uganda

  Open Access•Amanda Tumusiime•African Arts•2017

  Add to list

• A Crown on the Move

  Ruth Simbao, Ruth Kerkham Simbao•African Arts•2006

  Add to list

• African Decorative Arts and Textiles at the Museum of Modern Art

  Katherine White Reswick•African Arts•1972

  Add to list

• Reaching Sideways, Writing Our Ways

  Ruth Simbao, William B Miko et al.•African Arts•2017

  Add to list

• Culture and Decorative Arts of Africa

  Dorothy Ross•African Arts•1976

  Add to list

• Beauty by Design

  Victoria Ebin, Judith Perani et al.•African Arts•1985

  Add to list

• Beads of Life

  Marie-Louise Labelle•African Arts•2005

  Add to list

• Modern African Art in East Africa

  K M Trowell•Man•1947

  Add to list

• African Women in the Visual Arts

  Lisa Aronson•Signs: Journal of Women in…•1991

  Add to list