Nikissi Serumaga

32° East in partnership with University of Cambridge, Infectious Diseases Institute and the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial Fine Art, Makerere University invited two Ugandan visual artists to respond to research on self-perception among the elderly.

Nikissi is an independent short filmmaker and former Program Manager at 32° East. In her work, she creates bite-sized content that blurs the lines between fiction and documentary. Nakito and Nanfuka were the lead contributors to her project.

Through them, photo, video, audio and household materials, she learned about their shared lives and what ageing means to them. Scattered around both houses were old mikeeka, mats woven from papyrus. In light of the conversation around maintaining relevance in older years, Nikissi began working with papyrus mats to transform these old, forgotten household objects into paper for new use.