
Our story starts in Masaka, is a city in central Uganda that located two hours south of Kampala, Uganda's capital. It's widely believed that the city’s name Masaka is derived from a Kinyarwanda word 'Amasaka' that means sorghum. Given its fertile soils and the natural green lush, during the precolonial era the area was a haven for pastoralists that migrated from different neighboring present day Rwanda and Tanzania. And besides other popular staples, Masaka grew a lot of sorghum that was used as food food for both human and animal consumption plus beer making. Masaka has since been a community with an interesting cultural diversity that uniquely position it as as a sought-after hub for trade and cultural production.
It’s upon this historical connotation that the gallery's founder artist Collin Sekajugo was inspired to name it Amasaka Gallery.
Amasaka gallery is one of a kind space that was founded in 2020 as part of Sekajugo's efforts to boost the presence of Ugandan contemporary art on the international scene. It's with this notion that the gallery aims to encourage young Ugandan artists to innovate new ideas that would enhance their practice to meet international standards.
Our mentorship program allows the selected artists to think outside the box and exploit the abundance of locally sourced materials that can be fused with imported art materials to create artwork whose thought process and execution challenge of local art making norms.
As one of Uganda's already leading contemporary art galleries, we are working restlessly through various channels to discover, nurture and promote local talent both at home and internationally.
“A society without art is like a body without a soul.”
- Collin Sekajugo