Inema Art Center
It’s an ugly day. Undecided. It wants to rain, but it also does not. I’m torn between carrying an umbrella and possibly having to lag it around all day, unused, or leaving the house and praying every five minutes for the skies not to open. The Kigali heat is still there, ever present, albeit cooler winds pacifying it these recent days. I put the umbrella in my bag, not giving it another thought.
It’s now day 3 of my lone navigation through the city. Kimironko Taxi Park has become my second home. I grab my mug of milk and samosas from a hidden mini-resto next to the exit stairs for a total of 500 RWF. It’s going to be an artsy day as I head into Kacyiru. Luckily, it starts drizzling lightly while I’m already on a bus, wading through the traffic-light snarl up at Remera. “Good call,” I say and smile to myself. Being unsure whether there is a stop nearer to Inema, I alight at a bus stop near King Faisal hospital just to be safe. I have to walk quite a distance though, 700m thereabouts, and all the while it’s drizzling. There’s a lifting from the humid air and a cold breeze wafts into my shirt. I feel the little chill, but it’s welcome because I’m certain of the heat that’ll come as the day progresses. Inema Art Centre as it turns out is right next to a bus stop. Shame, shame! But the stop is not indicated on the map, and the first time I'd come here was on a Wednesday night, my mind still raw to this Kigali cityscape. Anyway, my sadness is lifted once I start descending into this beautifully built center, with its motley placements of artsy items littering this compound on a slope. Everything here is on a hill anyway, it’s a wonder how they make it all look and feel so effortlessly organized. Inema is a Kinyarwanda word meaning a blessing, a gift, a talent, to cultivate, to give and to receive. Coincidentally, it’s also an amalgamation of the two founders’ names: Emmanuel Nkuranga and Innocent Nkurunziza (Inn-Emma …). They are siblings, self-taught painters and set up Inema as a place to spur creativity for personal, social, and economic growth. This came after they traveled to the United States for artist residencies and toured the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York. Mr. Nkuranga believes in “creating a movement in the city for those who don’t have an awareness of art.” Their impetus for coming up with Inema is echoed throughout the downstairs portion of the gallery, with Emmanuel’s and Innocent’s grand works of art filling it up; with accompanying stories and thoughts from them, and of their art and from what inspirations it stems from. As I go through the artwork hanging on the walls, warm, dark and light tunes of jazz fill up the air around me. There must be hidden speakers somewhere, I think to myself. The volume is just right, not too loud to distract you from the mix of colours on canvas in front of you and not too soft to be drowned out by the drizzle outside. It’s largely silent, that calm before a storm; but in this case it’s possibly after a storm, seeing as it’s Friday and Thursday was just last night. Thursday nights at Inema are a scene of colourful revelry. Expatriates flock the space dressed in boho-chic outfits; ruffle floral skirts, ready to boogie. Dreadlocked gents in clean clothes, interesting shoes and a bottle of Mutzig in hand are littered everywhere. All this happens in the presence and prominence of the art on the walls; free for all to see. “Rwanda has very little art in schools and no professional or post-secondary art training. The visual arts aren’t yet a very valued thing in Rwandan society.” These are words I’d heard from a young lady, a manager at Inshuti back in Musanze. It rings true to Emma and Innocent who are striving to provide exposure to the country’s creative community through programs run at Inema like; Art with a Mission, Inema Dance Troupe, and Nziza Artworks. Art with a Mission is a project started back in 2010. It aims to educate and engage disadvantaged youth in painting, helping them develop skills and an interest in art which might even see some of them leading the way in Rwanda’s future art scene. One can visit any Saturday between 2 and 4 pm to meet the children and see what masterpieces they’re creating. Art Jam is intended for Kigali City dwellers and happens every last week of the month. It is intended to bring people together to share their creativity, use their imagination. The Dance Troupe is dedicated to the children of Rwanda and has developed musical and artistic talent in over 40 kids from the Kacyiru area through a rigorous, positive and productive training program where they are taught Rwandan traditional dance moves. It takes place weekly on Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Inema also plays host to Nzina Artworks, which sees a group of Rwandan women with limited resources trained and then employed to sew, bead, and create; from custom kitenge pillow cases to jewellery to goat leather bags. Their work is displayed at Inema’s Nziza. Go in for art, leave with pillowcases! Each of Inema’s initiatives strive to produce opportunities for Rwanda’s underserved communities to learn to create and hopefully to develop livelihoods in the creative arts. |
Kigali Public Library
An attractive piece of modern architecture with its symmetric walls, high ceilings and thoughtful angles of natural light streaming in, the Kigali Public Library is a very impressive sight. It’s tucked away behind the US Embassy with a great view of the post-apocalyptic-looking construction on the opposing hill. You can’t fail to spot it while on a commute around Kacyiru, though ironically, it proves a hard place to find for the moto-taxi guys. ‘Librairie’ is bookstore in French, and asking to be taken to the library will probably see you taken to Ikirezi Bookstore near the Dutch consulate. It’s actually a place worth a visit, with its expansive selection of African titles and its Inzora Rooftop café that offers you a slap of Kigali’s remarkably volatile weather. So you’re safer saying you’re heading to the US Embassy. The library comes into visibility near the roundabout and you can direct your moto guy to go behind the embassy. Alternatively, you can take a bus to the Kacyiru Taxi Park and walk up for five minutes to the library.
The first time I visit is on a Sunday, mid-morning. The huge space, with all its symmetry and light streams racing in, makes me slow my walk and soak it all in. I inquire at the desk about the Great Black Music exhibition which was a recommendation from a friend on my first week in the country.
“The exhibition does not operate on Sundays,” the young lady at the desk tells me.
It may have been a blessing in disguise because when I did come back a fortnight later, I would end up spending four hours glued to the exhibition screens, my ass stuck to the bean bags that were acting as seats.
Looking at the time, it’s an hour to noon which is closing time on Sundays. I decide to have a look around. It’s all clean spaces, well thought out staircases, soft landings with carpets that dissipate most sound from a person’s stride. There’s a lot of young people, seeming more on their devices enjoying the indoor WiFi than the books on the shelf. I walk around reading the titles which are not really neatly arranged if compared to the overall outlook of the place. I find some interesting autobiographies in the Computer Science section, an English paperback at the French textbook section. But not to worry, the Kigali Public Library itself is a work in progress, with some empty shelves at the basement floor, but it’s certainly moving in the right direction.
It's RWF 12,000 to rent out a book for a year, RWF 3,000 for a month. They don't do weekly. Late fees are RWF 300. To register, head to the library’s info desk where they’ll give you a form to fill in and you can pay there too.
They announce closing time when I'm at a lonely corner on the lowest level of the building, frisking through 'All This and Heaven Too'. I honestly didn't know it was a book, Florence Welch must read much! There are fewer girls today as we trudge out, a fact that I observe in retrospect after my second visit. Our bags are checked out by the lethargic female guard. I think in her head she’s thinking there’s better things she’d be doing with her Sunday. The search isn’t quite thorough; I could have sneaked out “Memoirs of a Geisha”, a book I managed to read the first and last page of there.
I move up to Shokola Rooftop Café that comes highly recommended with fervent praise by my friend, Akazuba. The ambiance is striking, the balance of simple yet refined is unforgettable. The wait staff are dressed in laid-back denim, comfy Vans or Chuck Taylors coupled by African-print shirts. Comfortable bohemian vibes are wafting…
They are playing Asa on the soft speakers, and then Nina Simone and then Billy Holiday. And then it all loops. There's busy people here, mostly expatriates on their MacBooks; designing charts, proposals and nibbling on fudge cake, a sandwich paired with this or that blend of coffee, like I momentarily proceed to do. There's a quaint shelf of sparse books on the side... Random titles. I've carried my own - let me indulge in Warsan Shire’s “Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth”.
Kandt's House : Natural History Museum
The museum covers everything from the animals of Rwanda, its geography, minerals and the first resident of the building, Herr Kandt, who founded Kigali as well around 1908 to be a center of administration for German East Africa. The Institute of National Museums of Rwanda converted the historic residence into a museum in 2008 in order to increase Rwandans’ exposure to the natural sciences as well as to educate visitors from around the world about Rwanda’s biological and geological diversity. To get there, I took a bus to Mumuji (City Centre) from Nyanza-Kicukiro Taxi Park where I had been to visit Rebero and Nyanza Memorials. From the Mumuji taxi park, I’d taken a 300 RWF moto-taxi to Kandt; a distance I realized could have been walked in about 9-12 minutes, which is what I did on my way back.
It's hard to tell whether the visitors targeted were specific world citizens or a diverse range. This is in light of almost everything being in either French or German, sometimes both and Kinyarwanda, with a clear brushing away of English translations. I mourn, wondering why a museum in the heart of Kigali would structure itself like that. A hold of German supremacy still, maybe. I read that funding for the restoration of Kandt Residence was majorly provided by Germany. Their man's house, where Kigali (Nyarugenge) sprouted forth from; I guess they must include Dutch due to the Belgian presence after World War I... and the rest? Secondary causes.
Bella, my guide, tells me only one Dutch man has come in a long time. He came on a weekend.
The north wing of the museum features Rwanda’s biology exhibits. Here you will find specimen of indigenous species ranging from beautifully colored birds to strange and exotic reptiles. A male and female Gorilla skull shedding light on the contrast of the sexes, small rodents which look familiar but their names are sure to be new to your ears.
The rear of the museum is dedicated to volcanism, about the Great Rift Valley and all its tectonic and volcanic might. You’ll learn how the great volcanoes in Rwanda’s northwest were created, what makes them pop and how people have learned to survive and thrive in their imposing shadows for countless generations. This is all in German and Kinyarwanda therefore Bella had to gloss over the gist of it for my understanding.
The south wing of the museum is mostly dedicated to Rwanda’s natural resources and the history of how those resources were mined from the countless hills. On display are numerous gems and minerals along with maps showing where they are distributed around the country. Here, Bella says she's hungry and would be unable to read out the particulars for me. And she actually is really hungry because her sentences peter out, kinda drags her feet lethargically. So I decide to prod her on her life, and things she likes. Maybe the break from convention would push her out of this funk.
I like her English. Broken, but still understandable. Her tone is slight and calming, like she's inwardly a really peaceful person. Her Kinyarwanda is musical; this I hear as she calls out for the 7-month old crocodile at the backyard pond, almost like a girl playing with a doll. Sadly, it doesn’t even peep out one bit. She shows me a collection of snakes housed in wooden glass boxes, most of them asleep or just still, or maybe playing dead due to my presence. She doesn’t like snakes; her whole body is showing.
The highlight of my trip turns out to be one of the newest exhibits; a massive crocodile that was recently killed at Lake Muhaze – by a man with a hammer I’m told – that was stuffed and put on display. It’s a welcomed highlight to a museum that lacks any sort of must-see attractions.
It's hard to tell whether the visitors targeted were specific world citizens or a diverse range. This is in light of almost everything being in either French or German, sometimes both and Kinyarwanda, with a clear brushing away of English translations. I mourn, wondering why a museum in the heart of Kigali would structure itself like that. A hold of German supremacy still, maybe. I read that funding for the restoration of Kandt Residence was majorly provided by Germany. Their man's house, where Kigali (Nyarugenge) sprouted forth from; I guess they must include Dutch due to the Belgian presence after World War I... and the rest? Secondary causes.
Bella, my guide, tells me only one Dutch man has come in a long time. He came on a weekend.
The north wing of the museum features Rwanda’s biology exhibits. Here you will find specimen of indigenous species ranging from beautifully colored birds to strange and exotic reptiles. A male and female Gorilla skull shedding light on the contrast of the sexes, small rodents which look familiar but their names are sure to be new to your ears.
The rear of the museum is dedicated to volcanism, about the Great Rift Valley and all its tectonic and volcanic might. You’ll learn how the great volcanoes in Rwanda’s northwest were created, what makes them pop and how people have learned to survive and thrive in their imposing shadows for countless generations. This is all in German and Kinyarwanda therefore Bella had to gloss over the gist of it for my understanding.
The south wing of the museum is mostly dedicated to Rwanda’s natural resources and the history of how those resources were mined from the countless hills. On display are numerous gems and minerals along with maps showing where they are distributed around the country. Here, Bella says she's hungry and would be unable to read out the particulars for me. And she actually is really hungry because her sentences peter out, kinda drags her feet lethargically. So I decide to prod her on her life, and things she likes. Maybe the break from convention would push her out of this funk.
I like her English. Broken, but still understandable. Her tone is slight and calming, like she's inwardly a really peaceful person. Her Kinyarwanda is musical; this I hear as she calls out for the 7-month old crocodile at the backyard pond, almost like a girl playing with a doll. Sadly, it doesn’t even peep out one bit. She shows me a collection of snakes housed in wooden glass boxes, most of them asleep or just still, or maybe playing dead due to my presence. She doesn’t like snakes; her whole body is showing.
The highlight of my trip turns out to be one of the newest exhibits; a massive crocodile that was recently killed at Lake Muhaze – by a man with a hammer I’m told – that was stuffed and put on display. It’s a welcomed highlight to a museum that lacks any sort of must-see attractions.
Nyanza - Kicukiro Memorial
Guards today have been all over me...speaking in a somewhat authoritative Kiswahili. I feel as though in Kinyarwanda they would be full on scary. Why am I taking pictures, why am I there, this is where I should go to seek assistance, why am I still walking alone on the compound....
‘Urwibutso rwa Nyanza ya Kicukiro’. My first of three destinations today that will see me visit Rebero Memorial and Kandt’s House in Nyarugenge District. Nyanza was set up following the assassination of 10 Belgian soldiers at Camp Kigali and with the subsequent withdrawal of Belgian troops, the Tutsis here were left unprotected, took refuge in the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO) grounds and were ultimately taken to Nyanza and massacred.
I get there by bus from Kimironko Taxi Park. The fare is 240 RWF by Tap and Go smart card. I’m among the first few to get on the bus and I quickly avoid those seats placed on top of the tires at the back. Seating next to the tire in this smart bus is hectic. Basically in every bus. That, and sitting on those sandwich seats in between the aisle with old, loose backrests that make you prefer to sit up, and stare in front at the next one and how horridly useless it seems. Also, standing up on these buses is a triceps’ exercise in itself. What with all the hilly-curvy-ness that is Kigali. Couple that with constant checks on Google Maps to find out where the hell you are; it's all adrenaline making a commute in Kigali. The road south to Nyanza-Kicukiro is mostly straight but quite hilly and hot. No tree is visible on either side of the road. It’s also already 28°C outside at this time, noon.
After being somewhat interrogated by a burly guard who spoke some Kiswahili, that remarkably wasn’t tainted by Congolese pronunciation, a guide is brought to me to make sure ‘I do not walk alone’. He turns out to be an interesting man. He doesn't like the white man, or his white man name. An R... Name that I've now forgotten. His actual name is Uamahoro; bringer of peace, he tells me it means. And he says that if he ever does get children, he wouldn't give them 'religious' names. He doesn't think Uamahoro is pagan in the least. Also, he doesn't take lunch, or food, unless he feels like, which he says is rarely.
"I used to eat alot back when I was in school, but now, now I not feel like. But I know why. It's because of an internship I did at a company and at lunch I wouldn't go... So my body became used to it."
He tells me about how Nyanza came to be a place of ‘taking out the garbage’. Early in the morning of April 7, 1994, Tutsis began arriving at the École Technique Officielle (ETO) on the outskirts of Kigali, in Kicukiro, seeking the protection of the 90 Belgian UN peacekeepers stationed there. At first, the Belgians said the people would have to leave by the next morning, but later the peacekeepers relented and let them stay on the school grounds. But when Belgium withdrew its UN troops, the soldiers stationed at ETO left, abandoning at least 2,000 Rwandans at the school, including 400 children. The refugees pleaded with the soldiers not to leave them behind to certain death. Some even begged to be shot—so they wouldn't be hacked to death.
A little after one o'clock on that afternoon, the Belgians got into their jeeps and drove off. Some desperate Rwandans tried to block the convoy by lying down on the road, but the soldiers fired over their heads. Almost immediately after the Belgians left, Rwandan soldiers and militia entered the school grounds and proceeded to "take out the garbage." They herded the refugees along a dirt road to a nearby place - Nyanza, which was a garbage dump, and were murdered.
I saw 620 names on the Wall of Memory, that’s the much they could gather while picking up the pieces…
‘Urwibutso rwa Nyanza ya Kicukiro’. My first of three destinations today that will see me visit Rebero Memorial and Kandt’s House in Nyarugenge District. Nyanza was set up following the assassination of 10 Belgian soldiers at Camp Kigali and with the subsequent withdrawal of Belgian troops, the Tutsis here were left unprotected, took refuge in the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO) grounds and were ultimately taken to Nyanza and massacred.
I get there by bus from Kimironko Taxi Park. The fare is 240 RWF by Tap and Go smart card. I’m among the first few to get on the bus and I quickly avoid those seats placed on top of the tires at the back. Seating next to the tire in this smart bus is hectic. Basically in every bus. That, and sitting on those sandwich seats in between the aisle with old, loose backrests that make you prefer to sit up, and stare in front at the next one and how horridly useless it seems. Also, standing up on these buses is a triceps’ exercise in itself. What with all the hilly-curvy-ness that is Kigali. Couple that with constant checks on Google Maps to find out where the hell you are; it's all adrenaline making a commute in Kigali. The road south to Nyanza-Kicukiro is mostly straight but quite hilly and hot. No tree is visible on either side of the road. It’s also already 28°C outside at this time, noon.
After being somewhat interrogated by a burly guard who spoke some Kiswahili, that remarkably wasn’t tainted by Congolese pronunciation, a guide is brought to me to make sure ‘I do not walk alone’. He turns out to be an interesting man. He doesn't like the white man, or his white man name. An R... Name that I've now forgotten. His actual name is Uamahoro; bringer of peace, he tells me it means. And he says that if he ever does get children, he wouldn't give them 'religious' names. He doesn't think Uamahoro is pagan in the least. Also, he doesn't take lunch, or food, unless he feels like, which he says is rarely.
"I used to eat alot back when I was in school, but now, now I not feel like. But I know why. It's because of an internship I did at a company and at lunch I wouldn't go... So my body became used to it."
He tells me about how Nyanza came to be a place of ‘taking out the garbage’. Early in the morning of April 7, 1994, Tutsis began arriving at the École Technique Officielle (ETO) on the outskirts of Kigali, in Kicukiro, seeking the protection of the 90 Belgian UN peacekeepers stationed there. At first, the Belgians said the people would have to leave by the next morning, but later the peacekeepers relented and let them stay on the school grounds. But when Belgium withdrew its UN troops, the soldiers stationed at ETO left, abandoning at least 2,000 Rwandans at the school, including 400 children. The refugees pleaded with the soldiers not to leave them behind to certain death. Some even begged to be shot—so they wouldn't be hacked to death.
A little after one o'clock on that afternoon, the Belgians got into their jeeps and drove off. Some desperate Rwandans tried to block the convoy by lying down on the road, but the soldiers fired over their heads. Almost immediately after the Belgians left, Rwandan soldiers and militia entered the school grounds and proceeded to "take out the garbage." They herded the refugees along a dirt road to a nearby place - Nyanza, which was a garbage dump, and were murdered.
I saw 620 names on the Wall of Memory, that’s the much they could gather while picking up the pieces…
Rebero Memorial
"This memorial site reminds us how politicians can choose to be bad or good leaders. Very few politicians accepted to sacrifice their lives trying to oppose the Genocide and its ideology."
Julienne Uwacu Minister for Sports and Culture.
Julienne Uwacu Minister for Sports and Culture.
The Rebero Genocide Memorial sits on the slopes of Rebero hill overlooked by a forlorn ramshackle hotel, marked by a blazing orange outside but inside, gray like chewed-up meat. Its shutters are slanted off, wild grasses bowing from the roof; weather-beaten is the word. A remnant of Juvénal Habyarimana’s time in power.
Recently elevated to national level status to increase its chances of being classified as a UNESCO world heritage site after the next assessment in February next year, Rebero is easy to miss. Getting there requires a 300 RWF moto-taxi ride from the Nyanza-Kicukiro Taxi Park, over a heavily dusty road. I sort to kill two birds that day and headed to Rebero straight from the Nyanza-Kicukiro memorial across the road from the Taxi Park. There’s new developments coming up so hopefully the dust shall not be as prominent in the near future. New two-story yellow houses stick out over the hillside overlooking Kimisagara and Nyamirambo Sectors in Nyarugenge District, and I got to learn they are under development courtesy of the National Bank of Rwanda.
Over 14,000 victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi are buried there, including 12 politicians who were killed for opposing the inhumane actions of the genocidal government in 1994. Their grave stones stick out, with one adorned by a withering wreath, probably laid there a few days before. The guard here speaks Kinyarwanda, Kiswahili and English to me; all at different times. I think he feels more authoritative in his Kiswahili as he asks for my ID - but also, he prods me in English, asking why I'm interested in Rebero; follow up questions to his reflexive statement:
"You are not allowed here."
He shows me around though, just graves and names and a little about who they were; "Politicians and their families", he says, clutching his gun like a bow over his back. Personally, I see 3,397 names on the wall of memory.
On my way out I walk over the dusty road, hoping a vacant moto will pass by. Four motos pass, all occupied. My heart sinks. There’s a fork in the road up ahead, I walk myself there trying to fan my waning hope. I even enquire from an old lady walking up the road in Kinyarwanda whether I can find a ride back to the taxi park.
“Ndashaka moto…”
She points at the dust, mutters many words suggesting yes, I will get a ride and that I should be patient? I think…
And there I stand in the scorching heat of the Kigali cityscape, waiting under my turtle hut for a moto…
Recently elevated to national level status to increase its chances of being classified as a UNESCO world heritage site after the next assessment in February next year, Rebero is easy to miss. Getting there requires a 300 RWF moto-taxi ride from the Nyanza-Kicukiro Taxi Park, over a heavily dusty road. I sort to kill two birds that day and headed to Rebero straight from the Nyanza-Kicukiro memorial across the road from the Taxi Park. There’s new developments coming up so hopefully the dust shall not be as prominent in the near future. New two-story yellow houses stick out over the hillside overlooking Kimisagara and Nyamirambo Sectors in Nyarugenge District, and I got to learn they are under development courtesy of the National Bank of Rwanda.
Over 14,000 victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi are buried there, including 12 politicians who were killed for opposing the inhumane actions of the genocidal government in 1994. Their grave stones stick out, with one adorned by a withering wreath, probably laid there a few days before. The guard here speaks Kinyarwanda, Kiswahili and English to me; all at different times. I think he feels more authoritative in his Kiswahili as he asks for my ID - but also, he prods me in English, asking why I'm interested in Rebero; follow up questions to his reflexive statement:
"You are not allowed here."
He shows me around though, just graves and names and a little about who they were; "Politicians and their families", he says, clutching his gun like a bow over his back. Personally, I see 3,397 names on the wall of memory.
On my way out I walk over the dusty road, hoping a vacant moto will pass by. Four motos pass, all occupied. My heart sinks. There’s a fork in the road up ahead, I walk myself there trying to fan my waning hope. I even enquire from an old lady walking up the road in Kinyarwanda whether I can find a ride back to the taxi park.
“Ndashaka moto…”
She points at the dust, mutters many words suggesting yes, I will get a ride and that I should be patient? I think…
And there I stand in the scorching heat of the Kigali cityscape, waiting under my turtle hut for a moto…
Ivuka Arts
“Artwork can empower Rwandans to cross their own frontiers into an international dialogue and cultural exchange, while inviting others to understand the broader landscape of the newest member of the Commonwealth.”
Ivuka’s founder is the artist Collin Sekajugo, who was born in Uganda and raised in Kenya, and has made community activism his forte. Ivuka is like a starting point for most artists in Rwanda, sort of like Kenya’s Kuona Trust. For instance, the founders of the Inema Arts Centre, Bwiza Arts Kigali, Abien Arts Centre and Uburanga Arts who began their artistic careers at Ivuka, have gone on to set up galleries and art centres in Kigali of their own, owing a debt of gratitude to Ivuka for Sekajugo’s community activism blazing a trail that they followed.
Ivuka is located along one of the few untarmacked roads in Kigali. It’s a rainy day and I walk towards it from The Inema Art Centre where I’d been since before noon. Google Maps navigates me through the few turns I have to take. I stop over to buy an apple from a fruit stand by the side of this formerly-dusty road descending to Ivuka. It’s green and bitter, stings the insides of my cleft. I like that stinging; powerful albeit momentary.
The entrance to Ivuka can’t be missed. The name “IVUKA” is spelt out with wires, recycled bottles and dyed glass, in such an inspiring balance of colour. It prompts one to stop and marvel at the product of a process that must have been quite taxing. The gallery is built along a steep hill slope, requiring one to descend a flight of very steep stairs. As if in an effort to distract from the descent, sculptures adorn the side of the stairway wall; a broken record with what seem like rodent bites, half a man in motion (Johnny walking…), eerie faces made from newspaper cut-outs, a wireframe heart that stands four feet high that was once adorned with pink condom packets in celebration of Valentine’s and Aids day last year.
I meet one of the resident artists after my interesting descent, his name Jean Marie Vinney. With unfailing good grace and politeness that I have grown accustomed to during my stay in Rwanda, he gives himself to showing me around the quaint gallery. He signs off his work as ‘Munezero’ meaning happiness, and I happen to see a lot of Munezero signed pieces hang on the wall and stack against the wall at the back.
There’s a freedom of expression within these art centres I’ve been visiting, that seems a comparatively rare commodity in Rwanda where conformity, discipline and regimen seem to be highly prized by the administration. The impression given by the Ivuka Arts Centre is one of a youthful, unbridled celebration of creativity, and a yearning of the young people who are involved with it to break free of the almost automatic association of their country with the genocide of 20 years ago. For the visitor to Kigali, the Arts Centres make a welcome counterpoint to the atmosphere of Kigali’s major tourist draw – the Genocide Memorial Centre.
It starts to rain again as I make my way up the unforgettable flight of stairs.
Ivuka is located along one of the few untarmacked roads in Kigali. It’s a rainy day and I walk towards it from The Inema Art Centre where I’d been since before noon. Google Maps navigates me through the few turns I have to take. I stop over to buy an apple from a fruit stand by the side of this formerly-dusty road descending to Ivuka. It’s green and bitter, stings the insides of my cleft. I like that stinging; powerful albeit momentary.
The entrance to Ivuka can’t be missed. The name “IVUKA” is spelt out with wires, recycled bottles and dyed glass, in such an inspiring balance of colour. It prompts one to stop and marvel at the product of a process that must have been quite taxing. The gallery is built along a steep hill slope, requiring one to descend a flight of very steep stairs. As if in an effort to distract from the descent, sculptures adorn the side of the stairway wall; a broken record with what seem like rodent bites, half a man in motion (Johnny walking…), eerie faces made from newspaper cut-outs, a wireframe heart that stands four feet high that was once adorned with pink condom packets in celebration of Valentine’s and Aids day last year.
I meet one of the resident artists after my interesting descent, his name Jean Marie Vinney. With unfailing good grace and politeness that I have grown accustomed to during my stay in Rwanda, he gives himself to showing me around the quaint gallery. He signs off his work as ‘Munezero’ meaning happiness, and I happen to see a lot of Munezero signed pieces hang on the wall and stack against the wall at the back.
There’s a freedom of expression within these art centres I’ve been visiting, that seems a comparatively rare commodity in Rwanda where conformity, discipline and regimen seem to be highly prized by the administration. The impression given by the Ivuka Arts Centre is one of a youthful, unbridled celebration of creativity, and a yearning of the young people who are involved with it to break free of the almost automatic association of their country with the genocide of 20 years ago. For the visitor to Kigali, the Arts Centres make a welcome counterpoint to the atmosphere of Kigali’s major tourist draw – the Genocide Memorial Centre.
It starts to rain again as I make my way up the unforgettable flight of stairs.
Black Music Exhibition
For what the mixing of cultures spawned was unpredictable and unprecedented.
The victims of the negro slave trade – as I’d been reading from Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad” a few days before back in Huye – were hurled into the New World with nothing to their name, stripped of the objects and social ties that would allow them to create a cultural bond. Coming back into Kigali Public Library to indulge in its Great Black Music exhibition would help add chunks of what could be missing pieces to Colson’s unfinished story in my head (I’d only gone 200 pages in).
Here, I saw that of all the African cultural practices, only music, dance and religion – immaterial arts – were preserved and reinvested with the power to bring people together. The music created by black populations on the American continent was generated in the humility of slavery. It created a freedom that black people did not possess. It made the poetry of being “invisible men”, of the humanity denied them, resound like a trumpet. Through the curious reversal of the situation, it came to embody everything that was new and original to come out of America.
The impetus of the exhibition was to show that it is impossible to draw a clean line between any of the forms of black music and ‘pure and authentic’ African music forms. The various musical currents of the African diaspora do have points in common: A particular use of short melodic and rhythmic patterns that make one want to get up and dance – the blues, funk and afrobeat riffs, the loop in hip hop, a clear penchant for rhythmic structures, the call and response technique, pentatonic scales, modified timbres that could already be heard in African instruments, which would become ‘dirty notes’ in American music – the gravelly voice of bluesmen. The mute and wah-wah of jazz trumpets, the saturation of electric guitars…
Through the over 80 exhibit screens, one sees among other things, that religion is one of the first places people turn in order to recreate identity and express themselves artistically. Cuban Santeria is a synthesis of Catholic rites and African religions. Voodoo rituals were an instrument of cohesion between slaves. Afro-Brazilian candomble is a subtle mixture of African beliefs, Indian rites and Catholicism. The maloya of the Reunion island cultivates the memory of ancestors through music, while gospel and negro spiritual combine African beats and Christian faiths.
Largely though, upon tracing the roots of black music, it asks and showcases through a series of artists how Great Black Music perpetuated itself in the twentieth-century and how it continues to do so today. Through artists of the coupe-decale to the booty shaking of zouglou, the vocoders of Jamaican dancehall to hispanophone reggaeton. The life and times of artists such as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Sly Jonhson, Marvin Gaye and their roles in the march civil rights were narrated with accompanying video and their own soul, funk, rhythm n’ blues music. The jazz adventures of Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Miles Davies, John Lee Hooker, Cab Calloway, Steve Coleman & Cassandra Wilson. Reggae and Jamaican music from Bob Marley, King Tuby, Lucky Dube, Seeed, Alpha Blondy, Tiken Jah Fakoly. The Congo’s rumba, bolingo and makossa sang by arists such as Bonga, Zao, Franco. Afro-soul artists like Miriam Makeba, Cesaria Evora, Tadieu Bone, S.E. Rogie, King Sunny Ade, Angelique Kidjo. Muted calypso with Harry Belafonte, Kassav, Gilberto Gil. My highlight was the jazz and blues of Duke Ellington morphing into the rhythm and blues undertones adopted by Elvis Presley on the way to birthing roll into rock n’ roll, and its evolution into the more electric riff-driven exploits of Jimi Hendrix.
What the exhibition did is to offer the listener insight into the sounds, senses, sensibilities, fashions, politics, struggles, successes, failures, songs, dances, names, bands, moments, connections, controversies, conventions, conversions, cadences, rhythms... That have made black music over the past 100 years.
The victims of the negro slave trade – as I’d been reading from Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad” a few days before back in Huye – were hurled into the New World with nothing to their name, stripped of the objects and social ties that would allow them to create a cultural bond. Coming back into Kigali Public Library to indulge in its Great Black Music exhibition would help add chunks of what could be missing pieces to Colson’s unfinished story in my head (I’d only gone 200 pages in).
Here, I saw that of all the African cultural practices, only music, dance and religion – immaterial arts – were preserved and reinvested with the power to bring people together. The music created by black populations on the American continent was generated in the humility of slavery. It created a freedom that black people did not possess. It made the poetry of being “invisible men”, of the humanity denied them, resound like a trumpet. Through the curious reversal of the situation, it came to embody everything that was new and original to come out of America.
The impetus of the exhibition was to show that it is impossible to draw a clean line between any of the forms of black music and ‘pure and authentic’ African music forms. The various musical currents of the African diaspora do have points in common: A particular use of short melodic and rhythmic patterns that make one want to get up and dance – the blues, funk and afrobeat riffs, the loop in hip hop, a clear penchant for rhythmic structures, the call and response technique, pentatonic scales, modified timbres that could already be heard in African instruments, which would become ‘dirty notes’ in American music – the gravelly voice of bluesmen. The mute and wah-wah of jazz trumpets, the saturation of electric guitars…
Through the over 80 exhibit screens, one sees among other things, that religion is one of the first places people turn in order to recreate identity and express themselves artistically. Cuban Santeria is a synthesis of Catholic rites and African religions. Voodoo rituals were an instrument of cohesion between slaves. Afro-Brazilian candomble is a subtle mixture of African beliefs, Indian rites and Catholicism. The maloya of the Reunion island cultivates the memory of ancestors through music, while gospel and negro spiritual combine African beats and Christian faiths.
Largely though, upon tracing the roots of black music, it asks and showcases through a series of artists how Great Black Music perpetuated itself in the twentieth-century and how it continues to do so today. Through artists of the coupe-decale to the booty shaking of zouglou, the vocoders of Jamaican dancehall to hispanophone reggaeton. The life and times of artists such as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Sly Jonhson, Marvin Gaye and their roles in the march civil rights were narrated with accompanying video and their own soul, funk, rhythm n’ blues music. The jazz adventures of Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Miles Davies, John Lee Hooker, Cab Calloway, Steve Coleman & Cassandra Wilson. Reggae and Jamaican music from Bob Marley, King Tuby, Lucky Dube, Seeed, Alpha Blondy, Tiken Jah Fakoly. The Congo’s rumba, bolingo and makossa sang by arists such as Bonga, Zao, Franco. Afro-soul artists like Miriam Makeba, Cesaria Evora, Tadieu Bone, S.E. Rogie, King Sunny Ade, Angelique Kidjo. Muted calypso with Harry Belafonte, Kassav, Gilberto Gil. My highlight was the jazz and blues of Duke Ellington morphing into the rhythm and blues undertones adopted by Elvis Presley on the way to birthing roll into rock n’ roll, and its evolution into the more electric riff-driven exploits of Jimi Hendrix.
What the exhibition did is to offer the listener insight into the sounds, senses, sensibilities, fashions, politics, struggles, successes, failures, songs, dances, names, bands, moments, connections, controversies, conventions, conversions, cadences, rhythms... That have made black music over the past 100 years.