Current Issue – Transition Magazine

Tamary Kudita, *Roots*, 2020 Digital Print. Courtesy of artist.

CURRENT ISSUE

T136: QUEER UGANDA

T136 features a folio on Queer Uganda that paints a harrowing portrait of queer life under Museveni’s 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act in essays, short fiction, and poetry. As Danson Kahyana writes in his introduction, the “AHA imposes a life sentence on consensual same-sex conduct among adults…already criminalized under the Penal Code Act…there is also a penalty for up to twenty years in prison for activities that promote homosexuality.” To stay out of prison, writers and other artists have had to censor themselves. In this issue of Transition, however, they do not censor themselves; their courage to describe the reality they have been forced to live is beyond measure. To start, Mark Kennedy Nsereko’s personal essay “I’m Telling You about Omukwano Ogw’ebikukuju,” which begins with afandes raiding a party, holds individuals and the entire government to account throughout. And don’t miss the pride and free movement of Gloria Kiconco’s poems, Tushabe’s trials as an intersex person in “A Body in Balance: Wielding Community against an Oppressive Regime” and more stories and essays by Ema Babikwa, Beatrice Lamwaka, Jedidiah Mugarura, and Kurotayaka.

In addition to the Queer Uganda folio, Frederick John Lamp brings us yet another dimension of Bayard Rustin’s genius in “Was Bayard Rustin the Most Important Collector of African Art in the 1950s?” which takes us on a breathtaking journey of art-detective work. And this holiday season, treat yourself to Dagmawi Woubshet’s rich interview, “Let this Prayer Be Accepted,” with the scholar, author, and multi-disciplinary artist Ashon Crawley about his installation on the Washington Mall, Homegoing. As well as Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s interview “One-Woman Show,” with Booker-Prize winning author Bernardine Evaristo (from our podcast Transition on the Wire).

Description Continued

New, deeply imagined fiction by Ber Anena, Fred Lafortune, speculative fiction writer Endria Richardson, and Nnamdi Oguike–set in Uganda, Haiti, northern California, and Senegal, respectively. And striking poems by Marcus Wicker, Hana Meron, jason b. crawford, Saddiq Dzukogi, Jeremiah Agbaakin, and Ìfẹ́olúwa Àyàndélé round out the issue, which would not be complete without the stunning art (in resplendid color) of Modupeola Fadugba, Adjani Okpu-Egbe, Tina Williams Brewer, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Micha Serraf, Tamary Kudita (whose work is on the cover), Ethel Aanyu, Leilah Babirye, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Nana Yaw Oduro, Matthew Eguavoen, and Amy Bravo.

Ethel Aanyu, *Opala (unchaining)*, 2023. Photography and digital collage, archival pigment ink on Hahne- mühle Cezanne matte canvas, Courtesy of the artist.

Essay

I’m Telling You about Omukwano Ogw’ebikukuju

Mark Kennedy Nsereko

…They raised their fists and joined the fight, hoping to be mistaken for allies. Those “allies,” the guy who turned straight, and my acquaintances who hated Uganda on the day the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023, was signed into law, spoke the language of Ugayndans: the equivocal language. The language with which you tell a fellow boy you like him without telling him you like him. The language that woos a fellow girl, leaving room for explaining that it’s normal for girls to compliment each other when she reacts otherwise. A language married men use to ask for other men’s bodies.A language you learn from within, that you grapple with and sometimes lose, causing you trouble, because unlike popular belief, there is no Gay Academy.

Rustin with Nnamdi Azikiwe, president of Nigeria at independence. From J. Anderson, *Bayard Rustin: Troubles I’ve Seen*, 1997.

Essay

Was Bayard Rustin the Most Important Collector of African Antiquities in the 1950s?

Frederick John Lamp

The act of collecting his heritage is associated with his efforts on behalf of the nascent African independence movement in the early 1950s and his personal friendship with the leaders of that movement. From his youth, he sought out his African brothers studying in colleges in southeastern Pennsylvania, and like them, he was a son of Africa. He continued his work on behalf of Africa throughout his adult life, as well as his work in America in pursuit of African American civil and cultural rights and liberties. This is what he stated as his goal: “to interpret Africa to people of America.”

Ashon T. Crawley, HOMEGOING. Washington Monument, South Grounds. Photo by Steve Weinik.

Interview

Let This Prayer Be Accepted: A Conversation with Ashon Crawley

Dagmawi Woubshet

AC: As people were moving through what felt like a maze, they were actually moving through prayer. They were moving through the prayer, “Let this prayer be accepted,” and they were also moving through the word, “Let this prayer be accepted.” I wanted to use this as the ground plan and the movement plan for a couple of different reasons. One is because proximity is something that musicians, singers, and choir directors, and people in general who were living with HIV and died of AIDS complications, were refused, often, when they were dying. People would refuse to touch them, refuse to shake hands, refuse to hug them, even within the context of church services, they were refused. One of the things I wanted for the installation was to compel proximity.

Artist Spotlight

Modupeola Fadugba

Accompanying Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s interview with Bernardine Evaristo, “One-Woman Show,” are the gorgeous, nearly abstract paintings of Nigerian artist Modupeola Fadugba, which depict a Black all-female synchronized swim team.

In the surreal, underwater landscape to your right, one first sees shape, color, then one finds figure, figures, structure, design. The eye doesn’t drown. The underwater swimmers lift their teammate above water, a metaphor for solidarity and survival.

In her latest works, her attraction to water continues, as does the theme of strength through female friendship.

Modupeola Fadugba, *How to do a Platform Lift*, 2016. Acrylic and ink on Burned Paper.
Courtesy of the Artist.

A Look Inside

Poetry

jason b. crawford
essay on YEET!
“Life before the war was beautiful”

Ìfẹ́olúwa Àyàndélé
Invitation to the Gathering of the Owls

Saddiq Dzukogi
Excerpts from Bakandamiya

Marcus Wicker
Ars Poetica for the Afro-Alchemical Ending in Invocation
ATLien Intercepts Capitol Riot Live Feed, Filters Images through Anti-Virus Application, Splices Remaining Footage w/ Rev. Warnock’s Senate Runoff Victory Speech

Zama Madinana
karibu

O-Jeremiah Agbaakin
Diglossia
Vernacular

Hana Meron
american wax & gold for my mother
abugidarian in the baptist church

Mark Kennedy Nsereko
Trousers like Mine
Crying at the Orgy

Gloria Kiconco
Ugly Androgyny
Motherboard. All Praises Due. Anti-fragile