The Gihanga Institute of Modern Artwork (GICA), which opened this week in Kigali, Rwanda, is a primary for the nation: a brand new non-profit centre devoted to selling Rwandan artwork, tradition, and historical past whereas encouraging native and Pan-African inventive change.
GICA goals to fill a niche within the nation’s artwork infrastructure, which receives restricted help in comparison with sectors resembling know-how and sports activities that profit from world partnerships and established hubs in Rwanda, together with the Kigali Innovation Metropolis initiative, the so-called Silicon Valley of Africa.
The brand new centre is based by Kami Gahiga, a up to date artwork curator and advisor based mostly in Kigali and London, who can be the VIP consultant for African nations at Artwork Basel, together with GICA co-founder Kaneza Schaal, a New York-based artist and educator. “Earlier than we began fascinated about the design of GICA, we wished to create a multidisciplinary artwork area as a result of there are such a lot of completely different types of artwork that we wish to rejoice,” Gahiga tells The Artwork Newspaper. She focuses on administration and strategic imaginative and prescient whereas Schaal brings an artist’s perspective.
The institute, designed by Rwandan architect Amin Gafaranga, was initially developed as a personal residence challenge. After 5 years of discussions between Gafaranga and Gahiga, their concept turned a bodily area within the final two years. Gahiga visited the unfinished constructing, recognised its potential as a public cultural centre, and envisioned it as an artwork establishment, drafting a manifesto in at some point. The area, easy but intentional, options Rwandan-made furnishings and native gadgets.
Initially, the artwork institute was partly self-funded, with works loaned by household, pals, and their artwork group. Crucially the Mellon Basis in New York supported GICA throughout improvement with programme director Justin Garret sustaining a collaborative relationship, reflecting the muse’s historical past of backing non-profit organisations like Zeitz MOCAA in Cape City.
Sanaa Gateja, Revival (2024) and Christian Nyampeta When Rain Clouds Collect (2021)Courtesy of Gihanga Institute of Modern Artwork. Photograph: Aniket Uke
GICA is positioned on the coronary heart of the town and located in an space often known as the Soho of Kigali, a neighbourhood that includes small boutiques, idea shops, and eating places. Accessible to all, it contains numerous rooms, together with an exhibition area, a reference library, screening room, storage facility, a studio and residency area for artwork professionals and writers. The intention is to facilitate important dialogue and encourage mental and religious change.
The reference library is curated by Christian Nyampeta, an artist and filmmaker, and is a part of GICA’s inaugural exhibition Inuma: A Fowl Shall Carry the Voice, that includes artists Kaneza Schaal, Sanaa Gateja, Francis Offman, Feline Ntabangana, Cedric Mizero, and Harmless Nkurunziza who’re all Rwandan. Inuma means dove in Kinyarwanda, symbolising peace and love, impressed by a biblical verse. The exhibition explores religion, perception, and the ability of refined expression—highlighting a Rwandan cultural trait of conveying robust messages by means of quiet, understated means.
The selection to characteristic the library as the primary entry level to the area is intentional. “It is intentional as a result of earlier than all of the exhibitions, we wish to create this dialogue between the significance of documentation, informing your self in regards to the arts after which creating context to the artist’s works,” Gahiga says. It’s a room for conversations, leisure, and studying with a view.
This ethos is mirrored in its title which honours the founding father of Rwanda, Gihanga I, a tenth-century cultural hero credited with shaping Rwanda’s traditions, cultural practices and technological developments. The institute seeks to problem the pattern of African artwork shifting solely to the West by constructing robust cultural establishments on the continent, aligning with a broader motion of arts professionals investing in cultural infrastructure.
“Once you see Yinka Shonibare with Fuel Basis [in Lagos], Michael Armitage with NCAI (Nairobi Modern Artwork Institute)and Kehinde Wiley with Black Rock Senegal, there are artists, collectors and philanthropists who’re pondering that whereas it is nice to see the popularity of artists from the continent overseas, we additionally want a stability between what is going on on internationally and what’s occurring right here, as a result of it contributes to the soundness of the humanities scene,” Gahiga says.
Creating GICA is a collective effort that has confronted logistical challenges and difficulties scaling the formation of a non-profit artwork institute in addition to introducing the area people to a non-commercial area that’s new to Rwanda. Its mission is to construct a balanced artwork ecosystem, using an interdisciplinary strategy that features writers, students, painters, and filmmakers to facilitate the journey of concepts and collaborative creation. GICA is supported by non-public and public partnerships by means of RwandAir, Kivu Noir and Skol, all Rwandan-based organisations.
Rwanda has a posh historical past however initiatives resembling GICA may search to assist reshape the narrative and foster a unified nationwide id amongst Rwandans and in nation-building. As a love letter to the nation’s traditions, Gahiga emphasises the institute’s independence. “On the similar time, we discover the worth of collaboration, resembling private and non-private collaborations, partnerships with artists and different artwork centres,” just like the Ministry of Youth and the Arts and the Kigali Triennial, based by Sophie Cabano and Dorcy Rugamba.
“There is a will to push ahead and develop the up to date scene right here, however there’s an actual sense of encouragement and pleasure within the metropolis. It is also been nice to have impartial pondering in programming, with out being closed off as a silo, and to function inside the ecosystem, not simply within the nation but in addition inside the area itself,” Gahiga says.
