Kigali unites us, foreign artists, to create new roots

Abdelilah Bensassi is a contemporary artiste and native of Mazagan, Morocco, where he was born, in 1969. Mixing natural pigments, earth and sand as his favourite material, Bensassi works on paintings and paper with speed and precision using a syringe to create bases of warm and bright colours. He shared his artistic experience with Moses Opobo. How did you end up in Rwanda? I came here in August 2013 as an accompanying spouse to my wife, who teaches at Ecole Belge de Kigali. It was a new experience, but well, it was also another home-coming because I’m African. How did you end up a painter? My family sent me to Belgium for studies. They wanted me to study mathematics, but my passion was in art. So I swapped courses without their knowledge. One day I met a professor of art in Brussels who encouraged and inspired me to study art and do it professionally. I enrolled for art and studied five years, after which I started organising and holding exhibitions in Belgium and Morocco, which helped me acquire more experience. I met several artistes in the process, who greatly inspired me. I lived with my painting teacher for a year in Belgium. What is your artistic signature? I’d say I’m a painter that has demystified the forms, the motives, the signs and the symbols which we find in various rites such as the scarification of the body, the tattoo, or still in drawings out of the rock in the Saharan caves. My artworks consist of representative forms that help you travel inside yourself. On the art scene in Kigali In Kigali, art is a relatively new concept. I love the artisan nature and people, and it inspires me. I love beauty and aesthetic. When I go into any building, the first thing I look at are the walls and interior design. What have you been up to in Kigali so far? This year, I’ve held an exhibition at the Inema Art Centre in Kigali, and through the Month of May, I had a joint exhibition at The Office in Kiyovu with fellow artiste Natalie Tollenaere. The theme of the exhibition was “Roots”, because we all come from Morocco but have been passing citizens of many countries. Together, we share the view that where roads are meeting, roots are growing. Although we were both born on the Moroccan land, we lived our nomad lives without knowing each other; Natalie in Africa, and me in Europe. Art is for us the roots of our un-rooted lives. Kigali unites us in the same spirit of discovery and experimentation in order to create new roots and... take the road again!