Teesa Bahana

Bahana, Teesa
Teesa Bahana, Director, 32° East, Kampala, Uganda.

Conference Report. December 2024

Many of the conference highlights came from people working outside of museums, raising essential questions for museum practitioners to confront when thinking about sustainability.

Candince Hopkins’ presentation focused on the potential of Not being a museum and thinking not about sustainability but about what sustains us. As we think about sustainable futures, the question really becomes what is it that we want to sustain? For me, throughout the conference there was a tension between attempts to sustain as much of the status quo as possible, and an embrace of the notion that not everything can and should be sustained.

When Mai Abu ElDahab from Mophradat spoke about the difficulties of imagining a 2026, let alone programming, I connected with that deeply. Up until that point, I was finding it challenging to connect with some of the previous presentations from large institutions who had long term strategies, budgets and personnel dedicated to sustainability. But Mai’s foregrounding of Gaza, Ibrahim Mahama’s reflections on decay and decline, and failure and collapse as material, and Walid Raad’s incredible storytelling provided a place for me to sit with the uncertainty and disorientation of these times.

In times of great uncertainty, when we grasp for answers, possibilities become something real to hold on to. Zita Cobb shared a quote from Elinor Ostrom, “that which is possible in practice is possible in theory”, and I think Zita’s keynote On the Possibility of Place resonated so much with so many because of this. Mark Bradford, Ibrahim Mahama, Candice Hopkins, Manuel Segade, Sarah Zewde and Zita Cobb all shared varied real world examples of work that begins with place and reimagines what institutions can do and can mean.

As a first time attendee of the conference, I hope that reimagining extends to the structure of the conference. That there is more time for just being together, and that we can rethink conference models to have more artistic sensibilities at the center. It was a treat to get to visit so many LA based arts and cultural institutions, but there was also so little time. In David Horvitz’s garden on 7th avenue, I felt all the themes and tensions and possibilities collide. This project emerged from David Horvitz asking a landowner if their vacant lot could be made into a garden, for as long as it remained unsold. From its very inception, it is unsustainable, its lifespan bound by the current realities of private property ownership. But while it lives, it is built to sustain nature, culture, and community, inviting all visitors to contribute to the wellbeing of the garden. We did not have much time to be in that garden, just as we did not have much time to be in community together as workshop attendees.There lay the tension of sustaining the structure of the conference program, and allowing for moments that sustain us.

I think for many of the CiMAM attendees, what sustains us in our work and in our lives is being with nature, witnessing how artists imagine things into being and being invited to co-create in community even while knowing it all might be taken away at a moment’s notice.


Biography

Teesa Bahana (b. 1989) is the director of 32° East, an independent non-profit art center dedicated to the transformative power of contemporary art in Kampala, Uganda. As director she has led the development and execution of projects such as the 3rd and 4th edition of KLA ART, COVID-19 relief efforts for artists in the global South, dynamic residency programs, and international exchanges with partners such as Arts Collaboratory, and Triangle Network, all while nurturing a thriving artistic community. As network coordinator for Arts Collaboratory she plans and facilitates regular meetings with a diverse group from across the global South.

She is currently working on the 5th Edition of KLA ART, Kampala's longest running contemporary art festival. The 5th edition's theme is Care Instructions, viewing cultural heritage as a set of teachings that includes 'everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible'.

She is also currently overseeing 32° East's capital project and has raised over $700,000 to date for the first purpose-built art center in Kampala. Phase 1 of the center opened in March 2023 and has since been widely recognized in leading architecture publications. She has been a mentor/faculty on multiple art initiatives on the African continent such as RAW Academy and the MACAAL Bootcamp, while also serving on various panels and advisory committees such as selection committees for the Henrike Grohs Art Award and the Prince Claus Fund seed awardees. She is also a trustee of the Localworks Foundation.

Her work has been recognized by Apollo Magazine, as an Advocate in their 40 under 40 list, and one of Art Africa's 100+ Voices on Influence in the Global South. She is a graduate of Colgate University with a B.A in Sociology and Anthropology and Peace and Conflict Studies.

Teesa Bahana, Director, 32° East, Kampala, Uganda, has been awarded by Mercedes Vilardell, London/Mallorca.