”It's about reclaiming. Giving materials a life and beauty.” We met Leilah Babirye, a rising star in the art world, whose work defends everybody’s right to be themselves. ”My work has a lot of reclaimed materials from things that I find on the streets. It's not that I pick everything off the streets. It's those pieces that speak to me. You feel it. It's like if somebody loves you. You feel it.” ”So my work represents real people. They have real names. I also believe they breathe. I believe they have scars. That's why, however it comes out, I don't complain. I'm an artist who embraces cracks in my work, who embraces the way it comes out. I don't have any mistakes in my work because I believe they're human beings. I believe that they speak. They all hold the purpose of somebody. They represent a clan member. They are my queer people.” Babirye was born in 1985 in Kampala, Uganda. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She studied art at Makerere University in Kampala (2007–2010) and participated in the Fire Island Artist Residency (2015). In 2018, the artist was granted asylum in the US and presented her first solo show at Gordon Robichaux, New York. Wallpaper recently listed her as one of 50 America’s top creatives.
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