🔅 Senegal’s Wig Ban Drama:
Plus, The Republic of the Undocumented
Good morning from… can you guess where? (Answer at the bottom!)
The Republic of the Undocumented
Uganda’s government invests about as much in contemporary art as it does in snowplows. Yet Kampala bubbles with galleries, artist collectives, and pop-up studios that somehow keep the cultural kettle boiling. Want proof? Meet Odur Ronald, the scrap-metal alchemist now exhibiting at the Liverpool Biennial with sculptures hammered from soda-can-thick aluminium sheets and stitched together by copper wire.
Odur grew up scavenging Katwe’s metal markets for pocket change. Paint and canvas were luxuries, so YouTube taught him to emboss aluminium plates instead. Today, his installations feature silvery TV sets flashing “NO VISION,” jerrycans arranged like slave-ship deck plans, and passports stamped “Republic of the Undocumented” dangling overhead. It’s a raw, biting commentary on migration.
No Grants? Improvise.
Uganda’s cultural budget is a rounding error, teachers in the arts earn less than science counterparts, and public performances require Uganda Communications Commission approval (plus a fee). Small wonder most creatives juggle day jobs or hustle for European grants. The gap has bred a rough-and-ready ecosystem: 32 Degrees East hosts residencies in repurposed shipping containers; Afriart Gallery, Xenson Art Space, and The Capsule champion local talent; and peer-led workshops trade proposal-writing tips like cheat codes.
Visas: The Final Boss
Odur’s work made last year’s Venice Biennale; his visa did not.
His Liverpool piece Muly’ Ato Limu (All in One Boat) responds by suspending hundreds of embossed “passports” over a floor-plan shaped like a slave ship, while a soundtrack re-enacts nerve-shredding visa interviews in Luganda, Lusoga, Lunyankore, Lango… and English. Message received: centuries pass, paperwork still shackles movement.
Still, the scene endures. Every new show staged in a backyard, every copper-wired sculpture sold abroad, and every shipping-container studio welded into place signals the same thing: Uganda’s artists are not waiting for permission.
All of this makes for a fascinating interview, and you can read it right here.
Lured, Locked & Logging In: When “Dream Job” in Laos Means Scamming for Your Supper
Khobby (Ghana) and Jojo (Uganda) thought they’d scored sleek data-entry gigs in Laos. Here’s the offer they received:
Free flights,
$1,200 a month,
Cushy office jobs…
But the reality was far from it: Passports confiscated on arrival, 17-hour shifts in a jungle casino city whose clocks run on Beijing time and whose unofficial motto is, “What are we here for?
Inside the Golden Triangle SEZ, workers clutch 10–15 phones each, and are tasked with fattening “clients” through sweet-talk and fake crypto apps until the mark is ripe for the final “pig-butchering” swipe. And if you miss your targets, you are subjected to beatings, food bans, or even your resale to another scam compound down the river.
After a brave strike (and a little embassy magic), Khobby and Jojo got their passports back and flew home. But their friends are still stuck behind biometric doors, messaging for help between cold-calls.
This world is a growing reality for young Africans who are lured by the possibility of a better life, and you can read more on this here.
Senegal’s Wig Ban Drama: Cultural Pride or Just Bad Hair Politics?
For about 24 hours this week, the Grand Théâtre in Dakar decided to moonlight as a beauty police station. Wigs? Extensions? Skin-lightening products? All banned, because nothing says “Pan-African values” like checking women’s scalps at the door.
The ban, stamped by Senegal’s culture ministry and signed by the theatre’s director, Serigne Fall Guèye, was supposedly about “protecting cultural image.” The internet disagreed. Loudly. Critics called it sexist, invasive, and a power play dressed up as cultural pride. By Tuesday, the memo was as dead as a bad weave.
Here’s why this wasn’t just about hair: Feminists and civil society leaders linked the fiasco to deeper gender issues in Senegal. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s cabinet? Four women out of 25… and the Ministry of Women? Poof, gone. Add a ruling party with hardcore Pan-Africanist vibes, and you’ve got the perfect storm for a debate on who gets to define “authenticity.”
Guèye is known for preaching a return to “African values.” He defended the ban as cultural pride, but as one sociologist put it: If you really care about identity, start with language and economic justice.
Social media had a field day. Feminist analyst Henriette Niang Kandé went viral asking the real question: “Are we also banning bald men from shaving their heads? Or fake collars for longer necks?” Touché.
By the time Guèye backpedaled, citing “misunderstanding,” the damage was done. The ban exposed growing tension between Senegal’s progressive urban youth and the government they helped elect. Many now accuse the administration of sliding into cultural conservatism while ignoring bigger battles, like inequality and jobs.
Food for Thought
“Bitter truth is better than sweet falsehood.”
— Uganda Proverb
And the Answer is…
The photo is from Canopy of Kakum, Ghana. You can also send in your own photos, alongside the location, and we’ll do our best to feature them.