The Home Stay Exhibitions
A Home Stay Exhibition, Nyabihu, 2018. © Kigali Centre for Photography
Led by Jacques Nkinzingabo, a Rwandan photographer, music producer, and director of the Kigali Centre for Photography (KCP), The Home Stay Exhibitions grew out of KCP’s community outreach and photo mentoring work with young Rwandans. In 2018, Nkinzingabo and KCP colleagues ran photography and visual storytelling workshops for 35 young people in Nyabihu district. The participants created photo stories on subjects of their own choosing—stories that they felt were important to their country and community. They held an exhibition in the local community centre but decided to take it one step further and also mounted exhibitions in their homes. And so the idea of The Home Stay Exhibition was born.
Since the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has made huge strides to rebuild and promote lasting peace, reconciliation, and stability. However, the effects of the genocide are still felt within communities as victims, survivors, returnees, and perpetrators have had to learn how to live alongside each other again. One shift since the genocide is that many families have closed the doors of their homes to neighbours and friends. The Home Stay Exhibitions seek to reopen the doors and rebuild trust and dialogue using photography to start conversations about community concerns. In Rwanda, where healing is understood to occur through social reconnection in everyday life, The Home Stay Exhibitions look to break down the walls that have grown around the home and make new kinds of community conversations possible.
Jaxia Abizerimana.
“When you give birth without marriage, our society thinks you’re a prostitute; you lose lots of friends; well, there are a lot of perceptions about you. Mostly they perceive you as a person who is useless, but through my narrative, people will know the true circumstances. Maybe the story will shine hope, advise, motivate, or leave a lesson for someone.”.
© Richard Ingabire from ‘Pregnancy not by Choice’
In the last Home Stay Exhibitions, four young photographers mentored by KCP photographers displayed their photo stories on subjects including underage mothers, potato farming, fishing, and what it means to be a Rwandan man. Neighbours, friends, and community leaders were invited to the host’s homes, and the photographs were used to create conversations around the subjects depicted. Guests were invited to ask questions, and the photographers, as well as the people in their pictures, introduced the photographs and the stories behind them before there was an open dialogue around the subsequent questions.
Evaluative research found that the images enabled conversations around sensitive and challenging issues that extended beyond what was contained in the photograph itself. The Home Stay Exhibitions carved a space for different kinds of horizontal and inclusive conversations. Community gatherings are ordinarily structured according to set protocols, and only community leaders or designated people speak. The Home Stay Exhibitions created an alternative to the usual way of doing things. They served to open new perspectives and foster social healing.
Julienne Dushimimana
‘I was not shy to share my stories with him (Richard) as my neighbour, and I felt that it was necessary to talk to him because no one else was talking to me. He gave me hope to feel human and inspired me that I can still make it and achieve my visions. The pictures contributed by bringing us together to discuss things instead of how things are commonly done here, where people sit with their own perceptions without discussing them.
© Richard Ingabire from ‘Pregnancy not by Choice’
‘It is no longer in our culture to bring people into your home because of our complicated history… Photography is the first key to bringing people into each other’s homes. It draws people who were far apart into one space.
