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DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Sunanda K. Sanyal Emory University, 2000. Title: "Imaging Art, Making History: Two Generations of Makerere Artists" In this dissertation, I examine the history of art training and production at the Margaret Trowell School of Fine and Industrial Arts of Uganda's Makerere University. Focusing on the careers of two generations of artists trained at this School between the 1930's and 1990's, I adopt a two-fold approach. While I trace the history of the School through the changing scenarios of colonial and post-colonial periods, first I pay special attention to the numerous ways artists from both generations have exploited existing indigenous objects, materials, images, ideas, and social memories to make artistic statements. I examine how an appropriated element transforms as a sign; how it undergoes changes from one context to another, until its affiliation with other such signs, or its statement about the process and enterprise of art-making, becomes as much, or even more vital than its connection with its initial referent. Second, I demonstrate that certain affinities underlying the apparently opposing pedagogical practices from the different periods of the School's history have crucially mediated in this kinship among diverse images and individual artistic endeavors. I argue that not only is this combined inquiry of academic training and production effective in mapping an art history in the making, but it also reveals the various strategies the younger generation has adopted to look beyond the local and assert their artistic claims in a global arena.
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
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