Ugandan and American artist and activist Leilah Babirye has a show of her new work, “Ekiba Bya ba Kuchu mu Buganda” (Kuchu Clans of Buganda), on display at Gordon Robichaux, 22 East 17th Street, ninth floor, from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays through November 22. Kuchu is a sub rosa Lugandan word with which queer Ugandans address each other.
Leilah draws on Bugandan Kingdom history for her haunting work and her figures make one feel one is in the presence of ancestors, spiritual and personal. As in her earlier work, she cannily uses found objects—chains and locks, fabric, and wood blackened by blowtorch, as well as glazed ceramic—pointedly evoking episiyaga, meaning sugarcane husk, i.e. rubbish, the Lugandan slur for queer person, and uses what is otherwise trash to create things of beauty and stature.
The work on exhibit, according to Sam Gordon, of Gordon Robichaux, is all but sold out. Leilah is a 2015 alumna of Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR) and Gordon maintains that “Fire Island is her Plymouth Rock,” the place where she discovered America. Leilah had a show in San Francisco earlier this year and is scheduled to have one in London during the coming year.