The Ododo Wa exhibit has been situated within a survivor centred approach by several of our media sources. YorkU’s yFile places the exhibit within the context of United Nations Security Council’s adoption of Resolution 2467 on 23 April 2019. This resolution “articulates a survivor-centred approach to the prevention and response to conflict-related sexual violence.” Like this resolution, the exhibit prioritizes a survivor-centred approach, meaning that survivors are empowered to seek justice and reparations. 

In this YouTube video annotation on the left, Grace Acan defines survivor-centred justice for war-affected women.

News media has similarly situated the exhibit as timely, and its association with dialogues for survivors as necessary. For example, the arts magazine GalleriesWest places the exhibit in relation to the Nobel Peace Prize winners, Dr. Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, and their efforts against the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. This is also shown in the University of Manitoba’s news, which represents the exhibit in the context of Uganda’s transitional justice policy of June 2019. 

The curatorial approach to the exhibit was also based on a survivor-centred approach. For example, CMHR curator Isabelle Masson acknowledges that for activists organizing around issues of sexual violence in war, it is important to minimize risks of re-traumatization or even further traumatization (Bitu Tshikudi, 2019). For these reasons, the exhibit aims to establish a sustainable and supportive storytelling process and environment that focuses on survivors’ needs, their voices, and their leadership towards justice and reparations. 

Naturally, a place-based tension emerges in response to the exhibit. As Masson reflected on the Uganda National Museum event in December 2019, one audience member asked “Why do we need Canadians to tell our stories?” (Masson, 2020). In relation, Canadian journalists and artists sometimes asserted that it was difficult to “imagine” what Acan and Amony went through (Alfa, 2019; Ikemiya, 2019). In some cases, Canadian journalists asked, “What can Canadians do to help?” (Bitu Tshikudi, 2019).  Acan, Amony and those involved with making the exhibit asserted that Canadians can help by a) listening to survivors, b) paying attention to survivors’ leadership in regards to their needs, and c) seeing how one can help, as directed by survivors, “at this moment” (Masson in Bitu Tshikudi, 2019). Therefore, the exhibit appears to have multiple capacities: it functions as an example of survivor's activism that holds opportunities for survivor-centred knowledge mobilization, learning, pedagogy, dialogue, and justice.