For the last two years or so, the Rwandan visual art industry has suffered some hiccups, with the closing down of the once vibrant Uburanga Centre in Kimihurura, and Yego Art Centre, formerly based in Nyarutarama and later finding home also in Kimihurura. However, despite these developments, the art industry in 2017 showed its resilience, evidenced by the opening up of new art centres and expansion of Epa Binamungu’s Inganzo Art Centre and gallery, based in Masaka, an outpost town of Kigali.
A number of Rwandan visual artists also held exhibitions, a strategy through which they market and sell their products, in different venues. And perhaps the biggest news of the year was the opening in December of Rwanda’s first photography centre in Kacyiru by Rwanda’s famous photographer, Jack Yakubu.
Far from Kigali, precisely in Musanze town, the country’s art industry got a shot in the arm when a new art gallery, called Red Rocks Art Centre, was launched in Kinigi. The gallery is going to promote conservation efforts around the Volcanoes National Park through art.
And earlier this year, Yaya Art Gallery also opened its doors to a group of artisans to exhibit their work there. The art gallery features not only visual art pieces like paintings but also cloth lines, art collections from the East African region and beyond and handcrafts from different producers.
The art industry also showed its potential for growth, with several Rwandan visual artists exhibiting their works in different cities around the world. These shows were well attended, and the audience appreciated the talent of Rwandan artists and the masterpieces they can produce.
In Masaka, Inganzo Art Centre was in the spotlight for holding four exhibitions, according to Epa Binamungu, the founder of the centre-cum-gallery.
Binamungu says the highlight of the year was when a group of 14 artists from Tanzania joined 10 Rwandan visual artists in an international art exhibition dubbed “Iwacu Nyumbani”, Kinyarwanda for “We are at home”, which aimed at bringing together artists to share their artistic experiences and to learn from each other.
“I plan to make it a yearly event at the end of each year to evaluate the progress of art in the region. I plan to invite artists from Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania to come here and share their experiences and challenges and learn from each other in the art industry, and this is one way Inganzo hopes to improve art not only in Rwanda, but also in the region,” says Binamungu.
According to Joan Kabanyara, a fashion designer who also exhibits her designer clothes at Yaya Art Gallery, the opening of the Yaya is to provide opportunity for Rwandan visual artists, clothes and handcraft makers from the region a central place they can market their products.
Yaya Art Gallery also boats a spacious garden and bar from where visitors can come and relax together as they haggle over the pieces of products over drinks.
According to Greg Bakunzi, the founder of Red Rocks Rwanda, the new Red Rocks Art Centre in Kinigi is precisely going to promote conservation efforts through art. “We are going to not just market art and craft products in the gallery but it’s also a research and education centre through which we are going to involve the local community, conservation experts, educational institutions and tourists to debate and foster new ways through which we can conserve the environment around our national parks,” says Bakunzi.
In September 2017, visual artist Emmanuel Nkuranga hosted a solo contemporary art exhibition dubbed Analog Aerials at the Inema Art Centre in Kacyiru.
Nkuranga, the co-founder of Inema Art Centre and curator of the exhibition, explained that Analog Aerials sought to bring cities alive through e-waste of computer motherboards.
While preparing for the exhibition, Nkuranga scoured the country in search for e-waste that brings the beauty of the computer outside of the box, and his complex work brought alive attractive masterpieces of artwork that included musical instruments like guitars that he said at the time should be viewed for the beauty of their form, rather than the sounds they produce.
His search yielded an assortment of used and discarded computer accessories and other materials like computer motherboards, keyboards, resins, paints, wood, and other heavy industrial parts.
Innocent Buregeya, formerly of Uburanga Art Centre also in October held a solo art exhibition at his new art centre in Gishushu. Dubbed A Night of the Moon, the exhibition swapped canvass for burnt wood.
Internationally, Rwandan visual artists continued to showcase what the country has to offer, with Shaban Masengesho, a photographer, hosting a photography exhibition in November in Studieren Ohne Grenzen and Theater Freiburg, Germany. The exhibition, dubbed Rwanda Through My Lens, showcased mostly the development that Rwanda has undergone since the 1994 genocide.
Other Rwandan visual artists who exhibited in Western capitals include Pacifique Niyonsenga and his brother Bertrand Shimwe, co-founders of Niyo Art Centre, Jack Yakubu, and Jean Marie Vianney Munezero who were among the artists who participated in the East Africa Art Biennale, a nonprofit outfit which presents the best recent works of the East African artists together with few other international guest artists. This year’s event was held in Arusha and Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania.