Artist & Director
Paix
About
Gillian Katungi is an artist and director based in Glasgow. She expresses as and through PAIX, which means peace. Paix experiments with new forms of expression and finds freedom in the space between established (art) forms. Their offering is currently expressed through audio and visual. Their inquiry is influenced by the divine, black feminist liberatory pedagogies, love, speculative fiction, diasporic experiences, oral storytelling traditions and the black archive. With a desire to re-envisage and create new paradigms, their artistic process pursues decoloniality, emotional honesty, and playful exploration without judgment - creating space for what can emerge and flourish when black intersectional experience and expression is centered. Paix loves participation with and in community and views play as a tool for liberation.
Paix is collaborative and loves co-creating and facilitating. Alongside leading on their own projects, Paix receives commissions and collaborates with national and international artists to make records, live performance, film and digital works. Amongst their latest successes are directing, composing, and performing music for; five short films and four records, including the award-winning film Ghost Island, by Lisandro Suriel. Paix also co-wrote and performed on the critically acclaimed album, 'With Love, From Glasgow' by Producer and DJ Rebecca Vasmant, which made the Top 10 on the UK and International Jazz Charts, respectively.
Alongside her artistic practice, Gillian is an Executive Director at Kinfolk Network, an organisation that brings black campaigners and organisers together to learn from each other, strategise and heal. She is also involved in community building with various collectives. Gillian is pro-rest, joy, and community, and she desires the de-colonisation of healing and artistic practices. She is particularly passionate about platforming and centering marginalised voices and young people. She is a mentor through Scottish school-based programme, MCR pathways, and via less formal channels.