Being an artiste in Rwanda is much more challenging than any other place in East Africa, because, first of all, we are challenged with space. For example, if you’re an actor you don’t have a theater. So we have the choice to either not do anything, or we can create new ways and new spaces. It’s also difficult to get permission to work on the street, for example, so this could be a good alternative.

Not my words, but those of Natacha Muzira, a journalist and actress. The event at which she made the remarks was a visual arts exhibition dubbed "First Fridays”, at the Impact Hub Kigali, a shared working space.

Themed Human Emotions, the exhibition brought together four young Rwandan artistes; the painters, Alex Niragira and Djamal Ntagara, Christella Bijou, an illustrator, and photographer Jacques Nkinzingabo, who was also the exhibition’s curator.

It was a collaboration between Nkinzingabo’s Kwanda Art Foundation which brought the artistes together, PromoAfrika Communications, which catered to the music and entertainment, while Impact Hub Kigali played hosts.

The exhibition was spread out between the hub’s shared working space, and the facility’s new community rooftop venue.

The motley crowd consisted of anything from young social entrepreneurs, artists, hobbyists, change agents, makers, and friends of Rwandan visual art in general.

Exploring our emotions:

"Emotions make us human. Emotions are expressed differently in different cultures and also interpreted differently in different cultures,” read one of the promotional messages inscribed artistically on the walls of the exhibition space.

Basically the collection was composed of different photo portraits depicting human emotions.

"My vision is to help fellow Rwandan artistes in the small ways that I can. Many of them are new and had never held exhibitions before,” explained Nkinzingabo, the curator.

29 year-old Ntagara Djamal, a visual artist from Uburanga Arts Studio in Kimihurura is one such artiste.

"This is my first exhibition. It’s a good opportunity to meet up with fellow artistes as well as my clients and potential clients away from my work station,” he said excitedly.

Ntagara did not do only paintings but also organic lampshades, which actually were some of the more colorful wares on display. He painted under the theme of urbanisation.

"I focused on urbanisation here in Kigali. When I compare the Rwanda of today and where the country was twenty years ago I realise there is a very big difference and one of the first indicators is the urbanisation and infrastructure development,” he explained, adding: "The other thing I captured is the smartness of Rwandans. Today, Rwandans are clean and they are smart in everything that they are doing.”

Ntagara insisted that he did not participate in the exhibition to sell pieces, but rather to showcase his work to potential clients with a view to future business.

"The biggest benefit from this exhibition is the people that turned up. We invited some but others just came on their own and they are here. Most of the people who buy our pieces usually find the same art pieces in galleries –women carrying baskets on their heads, gorillas, village settings and such things, but I decided to paint colorful cities.”

Puput, another freelance painter, was also in attendance, though not to exhibit. After three years in the game, she knows how vital collaboration among artistes is: "I’m just helping my brother Djamal out. This is good because the people who come to places like these where the exhibition is being held may not necessarily want to go to the art galleries. Here people come in because of the bar, the coffee, the prospect of networking, which all translates into more exposure for the artistes.”

Journalist and actress Natacha Muzira also tagged along Djamal. Muzira is the co-founder of Marakuja, which she describes as "a cultural lab and we basically want to create a platform mostly for artistes and children to nurture their artistic talents and also help them with the tools to be able to exercise this talent.”

"I’m walking with him (Djamal) through his creative journey. My role is not really administrative, but rather to do those little things at the exhibition that the artiste would not have the time to do. Things like communication and publicity about the event, but also as an artiste myself I discuss with him to come up with a storyline. He is a painter and I’m a writer, so we kind of think together and find a storyline between us. As Marakuja we also extended him support in form of paints and paint brushes.”

Through this collaboration, the artistes hope to stage different art exhibitions at different venues every first Friday of the month.

"In the future, we want to be able to conduct exhibitions in more than six places at the same time,” Nkinzingabo revealed.

In April, Nkinzingabo organised a similar event, The Journey, a joint photography exhibition that run for eight days at the Goethe Institute in Kiyovu.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw