AfricanColours - Art Saved My Life

Uganda Sun 25-05-2008

Art Saved My Life - Peter Oloya
By BBC World Service

Award-winning Ugandan designer, Peter Oloya, has been chosen by BBC Swahili to design and cast the 23 May 2008 winning trophies for its young entrepreneur competition.

Faidika na BBC (Prosper with the BBC) is looking for a 16 to 24 year-old who has a promising business idea that would have a positive impact on their community. The prize is US $5,000.

Peter will create trophies to be awarded at the regional heats in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda and at the final award ceremony in Kampala in late June. Peter submitted his designs through the Ruwenzori Sculpture Foundation that enables cultural and educational exchanges between artists in Africa and the UK.

“I am delighted BBC World Service, a broadcaster I truly respect for the quality of their work, has selected me to play a unique role in this competition. It is like a dream come true.

“Art is my reason for living, in fact it has given a structure to my whole life,” says the 30-year-old sculptor and artist. “I have lived through war and experienced death throughout my early years and I used art as a kind of therapy to help get me through those difficult times. In fact it continues to help me to this very day.”

The biggest challenge for Peter was coming up with a design that represented the strong brief. “I was told by the BBC that the statue should capture the forward thinking and innovation needed to do well in business as well as the themes of prosperity and growth. It was difficult but I am proud to say that I came up with the creative solution.

The final trophy is of a tall, slim but strong figure that stands on a base cut to the shape of the Swahili-speaking African countries in the competition. The figure stands looking to the sky with arms stretched upwards, supporting a huge star. Peter explains, “The statue tells you to keep reaching for the stars, keep growing and that nothing is impossible. The bronze and glass materials used to make the statue compliment each other well and it will last a long time.”

Peter, who was born in the village of Lemo Bongolewich in the Kitgum District of Northern Uganda, says he can relate to the young entrepreneurs entering the Faidika na BBC competition.

A self-taught artist who raised his own secondary school fees and funded himself through university, Peter says: “Success is not something you achieve by chance but only achieved through determination and hard work, the qualities I would expect the young people entering this competition to have.

Giving back to the community is equally as important, an aspect I particularly love about Faidika na BBC.”

Peter gives back to his own community through the Art for Community Development organisation he founded in 2004. Based in the districts of Kitgum and Gulu in Northern Uganda, the organisation provides art therapy, life skills training in art and craft as well as civic education through visual and performing art for young people in the area. The organisation is partly funded through sales of his artwork.

“Most of the children and youths who come to us are traumatised but our training really helps with their healing process. Helping to bring some kind of normality to young, innocent lives is very important to me because they are the future and will one day help to bring peace to the country.”

Peter, who says his greatest influence is British artist Damien Hirst, has won numerous awards for his artwork including first prize at the Uganda Art for Peace competition and for a bronze casting in a competition organised by the UK Sculpture foundry, Pangolin Editions at Makerere University.

Peter majored in Sculpture at the Makerere University’s Margaret Trowel School of Industrial and Fine Arts and has achieved a Bachelor of Industrial and Fine Arts honours Degree. He has produced work for many high-profile events including designing and casting the state gift presented to Queen Elizabeth II during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala in 2007.

Earlier this year Peter presented an oil painting to the President of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, when he visited Makerere University.

For more information please contact:

Christine George, Assistant Publicist, BBC World Service
+44(0) 207557 1142; christine.george@bbc.co.uk

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