King's College London

In April 2014 King’s marked the twentieth commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda with a photography exhibition reflecting on life in Rwanda today. It was curated by King’s academic Dr Zoe Norridge (English & Comparative Literature) and Dr Mark Sealy MBE, Director of Autograph ABP. We asked visitors “How do you see Rwanda?” – inviting them to reflect on their mental images of the country and how those images had been formed.

Internationally circulating photographs of Rwanda still tend to be taken by international visiting photographers. Our exhibition complicated this narrative by showing photographs of life today by ten Rwandan photographers, including Jean Bizimana, John Mbanda, Mussa Uwitonze and Jacqueline Rutagarama.

The exhibition was accompanied by a series of events featuring: a genocide commemoration in King’s College Chapel; discussion panels about justice, politics and culture; and the UK première of Ery Nzaramba’s play Split/Mixed.

The Rwanda in Photographs exhibition and events were supported by the AHRC (£44k) and the Cultural Institute at King’s. The work grew out of Zoe Norridge’s ongoing research on cultural responses to genocide and drew on an earlier AHRC grant exploring international conceptions of Translating Freedom lead by Paul Gready at the University of York.

It has since grown into two new projects: Children of Political Violence, exploring artistic work from Argentina, Rwanda and Northern Ireland; and Zoe Norridge’s more recent AHRC Leadership Fellowship, Stories From Rwanda: Academic, Creative, Applied.

[Images selected from those featurered in the exhibition; used with permission.]