About the Festival

This first edition of the Kigali Photo Fest celebrates photography from Rwanda and beyond through exhibitions and events.

We aim to:

• Provide space for photographers to show their work and share ideas with Rwandan, regional and international audiences

• Provide learning opportunities for both photographers and audiences

• Bring photography to new audiences – this year in Kigali, in future years hopefully further afield

• Create new networks and collaborations to build supportive and inclusive communities of practice

• Spark new ideas about the meaning of photography and its role in Rwanda today

The festival was founded by photographers for photographers. But we also focus on audiences. We believe African artists have a crucial role to play in educating African audiences.

So we’ll be asking questions like:

• How can we communicate the richness and creative depth of photography?  

• How can we encourage consumers of photography to value the artistic process and technical expertise involved in producing great images?  

Who is involved?

The Kigali Photo Fest team is made up of two founders, the photographers Jacques Nkinzingabo and Kibuuka Mukisa Oscar, the curator Robinah KJK and events programmer and academic Zoe Norridge, with support from Dida Nibagwire.  

Jacques Nkinzingabo

Festival co-founder Jacques Nkinzingabo is a self-taught visual storyteller specialising in documentary photography. His work explores cultural diversity, beauty, resilience, memory, migration and identity. It has been exhibited in India, Germany, France and Rwanda. Clients include The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, AFP, UNICEF, Oxfam, Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, The Global Fund and WaterAid amongst others. Jacques is also the founder of the Kigali Center for Photography and co-founder of the Kwanda Art Foundation.

Kibuuka Mukisa Oscar

The other festival co-founder, Kibuuka Muksa Oscar is a self-taught photographer, bboy and social worker living and working in Kampala. Coming from a creative family, Kibuuka is motivated by social causes, and is currently working on a long-term project documenting youth and hip hop culture across Africa. International exhibitions include the Addis Foto Fest (2016) and Kampala Art Biennale (2016). He received Uganda Press Photo Awards in 2013, 2014 and 2016 and his work appears in local and international media including The Washington Post, Start Journal, The Daily Good Magazine, MO magazine and The East African. He is a member of photo agency Plus Two Five.

Robinah Nansubuga

Robinah Nansubuga is a Ugandan curator whose career includes exhibitions and project management for the Ndere Cultural Centre, Afriart Gallery, Fas Fas Art Gallery and 32° East | Ugandan Arts Trust in Kampala. Her exhibitions have engaged with work from East and Central Africa, DRC and Mali, exploring topics including women, borders, peace-building and displacement. The initiator of Ekyoto (bonfire), an independent discussion platform for critiquing, confronting and storytelling Ugandan traditions, she is also a member of Arterial network Uganda. She is currently fascinated by language, identity and positionality.  

Zoe Norridge

Zoe Norridge is a Senior Lecturer in African Literature at King’s College London.  She researches cultural responses to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Her translation of Yolande Mukagasana’s testimony Not My Time to Die was published with Huza Press in 2019. In 2014 she curated Rwanda in Photographs: Death Then, Life Now with Mark Sealy at Somerset House and presented the BBC Radio 3 documentary Living With Memory in Rwanda. She is an Associate Editor at Wasafiri literary magazine and Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Ishami Foundation.

Funding