Uncovering acholi classical past : investigating design interpretation of acholi ethnic visual designs

Abstract

I have read in Aidoo’s Dilemma of a Ghost that it is sometimes assumed by the west that Africans were incapable of coherent reasoning. With this ambiguous implication, one is forced to conclude that, this meant that African ethnicities and their visual art designs lacked the matter and the form which made the other groups of mankind supposedly think more logically. I intend to dispel such myths as far as Acholi of Uganda are concerned by introducing a peak look through the designs of living expressed in the Acholi ethnicity. I hope, through this little work that scholars of other academic persuasions will continue to speak up for their own people so that the whole worthlessness of the invalid beliefs may be finally exposed. The thesis examines Acholi visual designs in terms of Acholi ethnic context, meaning and function. It is important to the Acholi for their visual designs to be reexamined in the eyes of the Acholi people. Hypothetically, if an artist/designer is to considered eligible to interpret/analyze Acholi visual design, he/she should be initiated in the ethnicity of the Acholi culture. A methodology partly according to Berlyne, Ogilvie and Mathew Ajayi using 16 in-depth interviews is adapted with Acholi and non-Acholi professional designers of various disciplines. Architects, artists, interiors, anthropologists who are educated in and teach history of arts selected from Gulu University in Acholi and Notre Dame University Louaize, American University of Beirut, Lebanese American University in Beirut and Byblos, are selected in order to investigate three main aspects: one, the composition, meaning and ethnic values present in Acholi ethnic visual designs. Two, Acholi concept of beauty, Acholi creative means and what makes them distinctive. Three, the principal features that recur to give Acholi visual designs and ethnicity Acholi identity.