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Kerunen’s beautifully designed textile installation pieces–created from components meticulously crafted by community weavers, who are mostly women and artisans–center art making and environmental connection, while subverting and deconstructing attitudes about fine art versus craft, colonialism, racism, and sexism. She deliberately uses regional languages for the titles of her pieces to honor her African culture and heritage. Her installation work involves hand stitching, appending, knotting, embroidery, and weaving–using traditional Ugandan materials such as banana fibre, palm leaves, reeds, beads, sisal, and bark cloth. Art & Object spoke with Kerunen to discuss her work.

Megan D Robinson: As a multidisciplinary artist, activist, and educator, you are involved in multiple genres as well as multiple educational, artistic, and outreach programs. How do you integrate and balance all these interests/aspects in your practice?

Acaye Kerunen: Life is seasonal. I simply breathe and flow with the season that presents itself. Of course with clear intentions.

MDR: What was it like being part of the inaugural Ugandan pavilion at the Venice Biennale?

AK: It was a lot of learning. A lot of intense moments and a lot of joy.

MDR: Storytelling is often woven through your work. As a multidisciplinary artist, are there stories that you feel can be told more effectively through different genres? 

AK: Yes and no. I tell the stories as they present themselves. Whether sculptural, through a garden, or through curation. Stories have a way of choosing their carrier mediums. I try not to over interrogate what medium might work best.

MDR: Why is sustainability important to you? 

AK: Sustainability is the very reason for our existence. Otherwise, we would simply inhale once and choose not to exhale or repeat the cycle of breathing again. It is the stuff of living. A healthy green planet is the only way through this paradigm. We may ignore it as much as we can but eventually have to suffer the consequences. So, it is better we commit to mindful living already. Who does not like to hear birds chirp, or see butterflies in the garden often in all their vibrancy, or inhale clean air, or just eat really tasty food that does not taste bland or like pesticides... sustainability for me is about respecting the simplicity of life in all its forms and dignity. 

MDR: Mathematical patterns and systems are an important part of your work.  

AK: Math is so much fun, especially when it is not wrapped up in superfluous language from foreign lands and people. 

MDR: Can you talk about why? 

AK: I understand it better, because I relate to the language better. I was very confused at school in math class, but the more I started to self-discover the mathematics of rhythm, music, resonance, food preparation, dance, and artisanal making, I rediscovered my affinity to its language. 

MDR: Why is it important to you to work with traditional weaving and crafting material and styles?

AK: Correction: not necessarily traditional, but primary forms of weaving which are less visible. It is what speaks to me in the same way that oil paint speaks to other artists. I am alive and inspired when in the midst or proximity of unique patterns. These patterns are usually showcased or demonstrated by ordinary looking gurus with mischievous twinkles in their eyes when I don’t get the mathematical sequence of that particular pattern the first time.

MDR: What does your color choice signify?

AK: My color choices signify the moment and season of that inspiration as well as the resonance of the story of that particular work. Sometimes, it is also the frequency of my emotional and intellectual state reflected. 

MDR: What do you want people to know about your work? What do you hope viewers experience through your work?

AK: I hope they experience joy, lots of joy and a self-finding moment. I hope people realize and accept that there are other significant views to art, art making, and materiality which are equally valuable.

MDR: You use your art to interrogate and subvert colonialist/outmoded and destructive ideas. How do you feel that art, activism, and education work together?

AK: They are like a pair of buttocks that must coexist by rubbing against each other. No matter how smelly or sweaty. The elimination of one side automatically throws an entire body out of balance.