An artist with unconventional views

Canon Rumanzi is an artist and photographer, with unconventional thoughts. He shares his thoughts with Edgar R. Batte.

How would you describe yourself to a stranger?
I would not. I would only ask for what I want from them. Or deal with what they want from me. If they like what I do, I would tell them I am an artist.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am finalising my residency at 32 EAST, Ugandan Arts Trust. Underneath all this, I am making more work, exploring, and seeking more desirable engagement.

What have you achieved during the residency?
I have met more people, had lots of fun, and improved the clarity of texts about my work. I have more resolve about what I do not want with more dedication towards what interests me. I have become less overzealous to interact with other artists. I have realised I need an even larger space than I thought I needed to make more rewarding work without scale constraints.
Through the almost daily commute to 32 EAST, I have had more time for photography in town. I have had my tolerance for ways of life I find more fallacious than mine stretched and improved. I have negotiated more ease with my nihilism and just roll with it, feel what I feel, want what I want, do what I do with whom ever I find myself with, and above all, to spare myself from over exertion but go surgical using just the ample effort for the process.

Can you describe your kind of art?
In a few words, it is presentations through various media chronicling or speculating about existence. Since we are irreversibly here, through avid representation, imagination and revision; we might as well make it more epic, the phenomenon of a presence of a consciousness such as we possess.

Does the subject of love draw your artistic attention?
Yes, very much so. Without love, longing, expectation and greed, very few individuals would have any motivation to even breathe or anything at all. Sometimes I see an ephemeral plant that has germinated on a spot in concrete, and I pity its doomed love! I see myself performing my life, and I am left in awe of my holding on!
I see pregnant women with another unlucky human to be here, and I know it is all love! Relentless! Every Me, Every You, just doing it, loving it.

Do you have a girlfriend?
I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a party.

What do you like about them?
It is a deep mystery. Like that rabbit hole Alice tumbles down.

What is the strangest thing you have done for love?
Walking through Kampala all night.

From what time to what time?
Around 8pm to like 1am. Then from around 3am to daylight.

What were you talking about as you strolled?
Anything really. From music to stories full of laughter to ones X-Rated and politically incorrect to personal stuff to “beware of the dog” signs ... we laughed at misspellings such as “beware of the god” ... time was passing so beautifully fast!

What is your definition of love?
Love is not something to subject to definitions! That is inviting tragedy without armor for your psyche. I could say love is all sets of thoughts, feelings, and intuition that make it pleasant and desirable for us to exist. I still let it remain an amazing ‘magic’. Besides all else it is, Love is dangerous too.

Views on love
Without love, there is no reason
Without love, longing, expectation and greed, very few individuals would have any motivation to even breathe or anything at all. Sometimes I see an ephemeral plant that has germinated on a spot in concrete, and I pity its doomed love! I see myself performing my life, and I am left in awe of my holding on! I see pregnant women with another unlucky human to be here, and I know it is all love!