Event | Barkcloth: A Living Canvas

Curated by 2025-26 BFF Project Grantee Sarah Ndagire and featuring the work of Stella Atal, Barkcloth: A Living Canvas is a visual arts installation exploring Lubugo, a traditional Ugandan barkcloth, as wearable sculpture, a vessel for cultural storytelling, and a medium for connection across cultures.

Please join us for an opening reception on May 1st at 4-7pm at the Dubuque Museum of Art in the Millwork District to view the exhibition and engage in conversation following a public artist talk. The exhibition closes on May 10th.

Location: 
Dubuque Museum of Art in the Millwork District
1000 Jackson St.
Suite 105 Dubuque, IA 52001
Main Entrance: Enter via the Dupaco Alley on 10th Street between Jackson and Washington.

Time: 
On view May 1-10, 2026 with an opening reception on May 1st, 4-7pm. This event coincides with May’s First Friday and admission is free all day starting at 10am. Learn more here.

More about Barkcloth: A Living Canvas
The Dubuque Museum of Art in the Millwork District will host Barkcloth: A Living Canvas, opening May 1 and continuing through May 10, 2026. Curated by Sarah Ndagire, a Ugandan-born cultural educator, performer, and curator based in Dubuque, Iowa, the exhibition features barkcloth garments created by Stella Atal, a Ugandan-born visual artist and award-winning fashion designer based in Paris. Through wearable art, installation, and video, the exhibition explores sustainability, indigenous African materials, and cultural storytelling.

Atal’s garments will be displayed as sculptural pieces on dress forms and through suspended installation. A looping video component will further immerse audiences in the process of harvesting, preparing, and transforming barkcloth, while highlighting its layered cultural significance. The project will also include a public artist talk and conversation during the exhibition period.

Hosted by the Dubuque Museum of Art in collaboration with AfriWell Hub, Barkcloth: A Living Canvas reimagines Lubugo, a traditional Ugandan barkcloth, as both artistic material and cultural message. Made from the inner bark of the mutuba tree (Ficus natalensis), Lubugo holds deep cultural, spiritual, and ecological significance in Uganda. Through this exhibition, audiences are invited to encounter barkcloth not simply as a traditional material, but as a living canvas for memory, identity, and creative expression.

This exhibition marks a significant milestone in the project’s development, bringing the work into a public museum setting and expanding its reach to broader audiences in Eastern Iowa. As a BFF-supported project, it demonstrates how barkcloth can be presented not only as cultural heritage, but also as contemporary visual art, opening possibilities for deeper community engagement and a future traveling version of the exhibition.

For Ndagire, the project reflects both a personal and community-centered vision, bringing under-represented African material traditions into dialogue with Iowa’s visual arts landscape. “This exhibition invites people to experience barkcloth as more than fabric,” said Ndagire. “It is heritage, artistry, memory, and storytelling held in material form. We hope audiences will leave with a deeper appreciation for the richness of African cultural traditions and the ways they continue to inspire contemporary creative practice.”

For media inquiries, interviews, or partnership opportunities, please contact:
Sarah Ndagire
AfriWell Hub
info@afriwellhub.org

Hannah Nelson
Manager of Communications and Marketing
Dubuque Museum of Art
563.557.1851 x118
hnelson@dbqart.org

Support for this work is provided by Big Field Fund, a program of Public Space One. Funding is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.