A SONG FOR ALICE: NEW PLACES AND FINDING GROUND – 1st part

What does it mean to follow a call? In the light of the life story of rebel leader Alice Auma, author and artist Ursula Gisemba looks at her own writing and how leaving and going to places influences the development of a text in the first part of her text series A SONG FOR ALICE: NEW PLACES AND FINDING GROUND

On Calling

To find yourself in a new place means, in part, to answer yes to a call. It could be a yearning from the inside calling you to explore the outside. Alternatively, it could be a call from the outside, asking you to go further out and exist in a new place. Inversely, it could be a call from the outside, pushing you towards experiences that break the norm and ask you to return within. It all starts with a call… I presume.

While reflecting on my character of interest, Alice Auma, better known as Alice Lakwena, it is quite fascinating to see her be described in the early years of her life as a tomato seller. Alice probably sat on the roadside for hours, on a sack surrounded by tins and boxes of tomatoes trying to get rid of them. Tomatoes – red fruits or red vegetables? The tomato itself does not know what it is. All it can do is what it has been set out to do: to be at the table.

Alice’s journey into a different life, a life not made to sell tomatoes but to lead her people to fight for their salvation and injustices they face, starts with a call. “Hineni!” she answers. Mimicking the call of God from Old Testament Bible texts (many instances of her life mirror, in part, the great consequence of missionary work and Christianity in African culture). Hineni means, “Here I am, I am your servant. Use me.”

On places

The first piece I am writing during my residency focuses on Alice’s journey through this call. For if Alice have stayed in place selling tomatoes in the local market, the allure of her journey would indeed be lost. Consequently, I find myself reflecting on places, what they ask of us and how they transform who we are, considering that I myself have made a journey from home. In the same way, I wonder, ‘What is the effect of my writing being away from home?’.

A place changes the work. A place has power on the work. A place influences the history of the work. A place makes work right. A place can equally make work wrong. A place influences memory. A place's experience changes a writer’s words. A place changes feelings. A place imposes emotions.  What is the meaning of writing a piece so focused on a landscape away from its landscape? Does my memory of the landscape corrupt my honesty of what I write? Or does the nostalgia of landscape increase my capacity to reminisce in poetry?

On Finding Ground

Much like Alice, I have no need for much other than to answer the call. To write. I am yet to answer my questions on places. I shall spend some more time on the breathtaking countryside, waking to the snow-capped alps. Maybe converse with the blackbirds or the squirrels as I ponder more on my writing and the development of my experimental piece of work! 

The author and artist Ursula Gisemba from Nairobi is this year's scholarship holder of our residency programme – a cooperation with Artist in Residence Munich: Villa Waldberta, City of Munich. In her three-part text series, she will give us insights into her stay at Villa Waldberta and her writing project, which deals with the controversial work of Alice Auma - a rebel leader in Uganda in the 1980s.