For the last decade, I have been consumed with a passion for Africa, in particular Rwanda. In high school I used this passion to create my senior exhibition entitled Rwanda: Through My Eyes. It dealt with the Rwandan genocide in a rather sensational manner as I attempted to bring awareness to a historic event that dominated my thoughts.
On this 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, I approach the events from a different angle. I am dealing with the idea of memorials, and how to memorialize something as significant, horrific and yet little understood or remembered as the Rwandan Genocide. Recognizing the deep significance that Christianity had in the genocide, I have chosen to honour the victims in a way that is reminiscent of the imagery of Catholic saints.
How can one even begin to conceive what it’s like for a country to lose an eighth of it’s population? Let alone honour the memory of the 800,000 people who were killed? What I have come to realize is that you can’t. The scope is too great, the horrors too unimaginable to even begin to represent. Instead I wish to remember and to create memorials that engender others to do the same. Therefore I have used image transfers, allowing the images to be imperfect, rubbing away in some places, fading to black in others, much as memory fades over time. It is my hope that these memorials will engage the viewer to remember Rwanda and all that has happened there for good and for evil.
Photography of Rwanda Remembered courtesy of Melissa Kerry Photography.
On this 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, I approach the events from a different angle. I am dealing with the idea of memorials, and how to memorialize something as significant, horrific and yet little understood or remembered as the Rwandan Genocide. Recognizing the deep significance that Christianity had in the genocide, I have chosen to honour the victims in a way that is reminiscent of the imagery of Catholic saints.
How can one even begin to conceive what it’s like for a country to lose an eighth of it’s population? Let alone honour the memory of the 800,000 people who were killed? What I have come to realize is that you can’t. The scope is too great, the horrors too unimaginable to even begin to represent. Instead I wish to remember and to create memorials that engender others to do the same. Therefore I have used image transfers, allowing the images to be imperfect, rubbing away in some places, fading to black in others, much as memory fades over time. It is my hope that these memorials will engage the viewer to remember Rwanda and all that has happened there for good and for evil.
Photography of Rwanda Remembered courtesy of Melissa Kerry Photography.