The art of the city: Kampala Taxi Park

Today I found myself reminiscing about my short sojourn in Uganda three years ago, when my camera was stolen on the journey from Kigali to Kampala and so I unfortunately couldn't record the trip in pictures. (Luckily, a while later, I did manage to get a few photos from people we had run into along the way: here.) Uganda stays in my memory as one of my favorite trips, even though it didn't have the most promising of starts.

So today I found myself traveling back in my mind and planning a hypothetical trip, deciding step-by-step where I would go and what I would see. I decided to fly into Entebbe, go see the Botanical Gardens and take pictures of the spider walk (where I so desperately wanted to take pictures last time), then ferry across Lake Victoria and lounge on the Ssese Islands for a few days. Then a ferry back to Entebbe, and a short bus ride into Kampala, where you are jolted from your laid-back Entebbe/islands mood as you are deposited directly into one of the most bustling parts of the city, the taxi park.

And here, in my mind, I got stuck. I imagined leaving the taxi park and heading out to find a room for the night, but my mind kept drifting back to the park. I think it remains one of the most thrilling sights I've seen in Africa - a huge square packed to the gills with little white minibuses, bound for all corners of the country. Getting into and out of the park, on foot or in a taxi, is an adventure, as you are dodging taxis, taxi conductors, sellers, other passengers, all while trying to find the specific taxi you need or the specific exit to the outside world that you need. If you can keep your head about you it's a thrilling experience, especially for those of us from places where we are used to seeing signs and schedules pointing us in exactly the direction we need to go.

So with my head stuck on the taxi parks of Kampala (there are two: the Old Taxi Park and the New Taxi Park) I decided to hunt down some photos. In the process I found a few interesting representations of the parks.

First, a photo:

From Parking in Africa (this site has an interesting article about the politics of the taxi park)

And, from above, courtesy of Google Maps:

I found a very interesting-looking trailer to a documentary about Kampala's taxi parks (below). Has anyone seen this? Know how I can get my hands on the actual documentary?

And finally, I found two lovely artistic representations.

Here, an illustration by Ingo Giezendanner that became the cover of a book called GRRR30: Urban Recordings, which sadly has gone out of print, but can be viewed online here. (Anyone have or know how to find a copy of the book?)

A detail: 

And here, a Ugandan batik artist named Lukandwa Dominic has represented the taxi park as a batik and documents the process on his blog: http://batikartist.blogspot.com/ (go look, it's a fascinating process). I think this is a really beautiful piece:

We've spent some time in class discussing the idea of "sense of place", the qualities of a space that make it identifiable and unique. Part of this discussion has centered around the loss of sense of place in parts of the world, as mass production and globalization and other various factors have an homogenizing effect on some areas (i.e. the strip mall, suburbia). When I think of Kampala, the taxi parks always spring to mind. When I see pictures of the taxi park, I think of Kampala. I haven't seen anything exactly like it anywhere else, although most cities have some version of it (i.e. Nairobi, Kigali, Tokyo, Seattle).

I'm also becoming more intrigued by the representation of the city in art. Expect to see more on this topic; I'm finding especially interesting the creation of art in and about the more mundane and every-day aspects of life. To me, it's beautiful that someone can take something as practical as a transportation hub and turn it into a work of art, representing the aesthetic, social, economic, and political significance of the place.

Do you have examples of art in the city in everyday life? Send them, I'd be happy to see them!