What happens when the soul feels like a stranger inside its own body? Four digital artists have spent a month trying to answer that question. Tonny Mpungu, Osward Tayebwa, Maria Byoma, and Aliguma Mugisa have held an art exhibition titled Native in a New World at the Xenson Art Space in Kampala. The month-long show, which opened on May 2, and closed on May 30, is a groundbreaking digital art exhibition marking the first-time digital artists have taken centre stage at the venue. The exhibition brought together the four artists whose works explore identity, movement, and belonging in an ever-changing world, where tradition does not disappear but shifts, adapts, and finds new places to live, the curatorial statement reads.
A language of laughter and discomfort
Through illustration, cartoons, comics, and layered digital forms, the artists reflect everyday realities that feel familiar. You may recognise something from your commute, your home, or shared cultural memory. You may laugh at situations that are deeply serious or even uncomfortable. This tension forms the language of the exhibition; playful yet critical, light yet deeply honest.
‘The works soften heavy realities without losing urgency,’ the curatorial statement explains. ‘They invite viewers to loosen up and face the world as it is.’
The body as foreign land
Among Mugisa’s artworks are Native in a New World; The Noise of Beginnings; Eye in the Mad; The Weight of Thought; The Beginning of Escape, and The River That Carries Us. All are ephemeral digital prints on paper.
In Eye in the Mad, a figure drifts between collapse and awareness beneath a watchful presence. The eye above does not judge or intervene. It simply sees. In a place where everything feels buried or lost, perception remains, quiet and unyielding. Mugisa explains that his artworks explore the experience of a soul navigating and inhabiting the human body as though it were unfamiliar territory.
‘I approached the body as a kind of landscape, one that is both intimate and disorienting, where identity is not fixed but constantly forming,’ he says.
‘Through recurring symbols such as the African pot in place of the head, fragmented figures, and shifting environments, the work reflects a journey of self-awareness, displacement, and adaptation. It is about what it means to exist in a space that feels both like home and foreign at the same time.’
Rituals, gifts, and belonging
Tayebwa’s artworks include The Give Away; Nakasero; Taxi; The Aunties; Standing Tall, and Kalele.
The Giveaway captures the gifts delivered by the bridegroom to the bride’s home during traditional marriage ceremonies; known as okuhingira in Ankole and kwanjula in Buganda.
‘The Giveaway explores ritual, exchange and celebration as central pillars of cultural identity,’ Tayebwa says. ‘Within the broader theme of Native in a New World, the work examines how ceremonies, particularly those involving gifting, carry deep symbolic meaning beyond materialistic value. The act represents unity, respect, family bonds and the movement of social capital.’
He adds: ‘This work invites viewers to reflect on how cultural practices adapt without losing their symbolic weight. By focusing on the act of giving, the work emphasises connection, showing cultural sustainability through reinterpretation. At its heart, it is about connection, participation, generosity, and the reaffirmation of collective values.’
A new chapter for digital art in Kampala
The exhibition marked a milestone for digital artists in Uganda. By taking centre stage at Xenson Art Space, a venue traditionally dominated by painting and sculpture, Mpungu, Tayebwa, Byoma, and Mugisa proved that digital art can hold its own in conversations about identity, belonging, and the landscapes we carry inside us.
Mpungu has a comic project about the making of the matooke dish the right way or old way, which also includes a display of mats, banana leaves, empombo in banana leaves placed in baskets, and gourds, among others. Mpungu says his work on the theme at had explores the tension between cultural preservation and modern transformation through visual storytelling grounded in African experience.
‘In my comic project, I focus on how tradition is remembered, reinterpreted, and sometimes diluted in the current world, using the familiar staple of matooke as a central symbol, I tell a story that reflects broader questions of identity, heritage, and authenticity.’
According to Mpungu, the comic follows a young girl documenting her visit to a cultural museum, where matooke is presented not as a lived experience, but as a curated artifact.
‘This shift from everyday nourishment to preserved display mirrors the gradual distancing from tradition that many societies face. What was once a communal, hands-on process rooted in care, patience, and shared knowledge becomes simplified, aestheticized, and disconnected from its original meaning.’
‘Through this narrative, I examine how cultural practices are ‘downgraded’ in modern context not necessarily in value, but in depth. The preparation of matooke, once an intimate ritual involving peeling, steaming, and collective participation, is reduced to a surface level experience. This reflects a larger pattern where cultural identity is consumes visually rather than lived authentically,’ he adds.
Byoma has a video installation and comic about Kanga and Banana. She says the project was created as an extension of the comic story, which follows a young girl named Banana whose family lives near the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.
‘Her father is a tour guide, and she is constantly begging to accompany him to work because of her love for the gorillas she has grown up alongside. This work explores the relationship between two major groups of inhabitants within the Bwindi ecosystem, and the delicate balance that defines how they coexist.’
He adds: ‘The video installation, currently playing exclusively at Xenson Art Space as part of the exhibition, offers a sneak peek into what will become the final animation. It presents the sequence of events that form the story, giving audiences an opportunity to experience the comic in motion. This complements the printed work by revealing nuances and transitions that may not be immediately apparent on the page.’
When asked how far she has reached with the production, Byoma replies: ‘The animation is currently well into production, following the completion of the animatic. It is scheduled for public release later this year. With the story and characters already established, the remaining stages involve refining the animation, recording dialogue, developing sound design, and bringing all elements together into a final piece.’