“According to the agonistic approach, critical art is art that foments dissensus, that makes visible what the dominant consensus tends to obscure and obliterate. It is constituted by a manifold of artistic practices aiming at giving a voice to all those who are silenced within the framework of the existing hegemony” (Mouffe, C. 2008 pp12).

Her Name is Beatrice, My Name is Lara: experiences in witnessing, internal displacement and conflict in Northern Uganda after 23 years of war is a documentary project manifested in several forms. The various forms and means of dissemination examine documentary’s potentials and pitfalls in critical “witnessing,” while exploring how voices from those living in the centre of conflict can challenge dominant media and humanitarian narratives.

At certain stages in the 23-year conflict in Northern Uganda, over 1.8 million people, or 90% of the northern population, had been displaced into severely overcrowded and squalid internally displaced person’s (IDP) camps, resulting in “almost 1000 excess deaths every week…” (Ugandan Ministry of Health, 2005, p35). It is also estimated that one in five girls and one in three boys in northern Uganda have been abducted at some point by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group and were forced to be child soldiers.

Although a ceasefire between the LRA and the Ugandan Government had been signed in August 2006, it has since run out without producing a peace agreement. The LRA and their infamous leader, Joseph Kony, have been active in neighbouring Sudan, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I returned three times over the past two years to visit Beatrice in Padibe Internally Displaced Person's Camp in Northern Uganda.

Annana, J. et al. The State of Female Youth in Northern Uganda: findings from the survey for war-affected youth (SWAY), Phase II. p. vii, April, 2008.