Namuleme from the Kuchu Mbogo (Buffalo) Clan

New York-based artist Leilah Babirye has become well known for her elaborate figurative ceramic sculptures exploring queer life, which is actively discouraged and has been legislated against in her native Uganda. Although this sculpture's open red mouth suggests danger, its red color echoed in the figure's chain-like necklace indicates a joie de vivre that challenges the relegation of the gay community to the margins of society in Uganda. Her ceramics are titled after Kiganda clan names; here, "Namulem" is a feminine name from Buganda’s Mbogo (Buffalo) clan. Buganda is a Bantu kingdom within Uganda; there, the key duties of Mbogo clan members include carrying the king and tanning the leather used for palace floor rugs. Babirye questions historical erasure by placing the adorned figure at the core of Buganda’s social structure, thereby centering gay life at the intersection of precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial instruments of power.