Photographing Loss: Drawing on Argentine Photography in Rwanda

Abstract

This essay describes and reflects on an encounter between Argentine photographer Lucila Quieto and four Rwandan photographers who grew up in the Imbabazi Orphanage on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. All five photographers lost their parents as children through political violence. And all are dedicated to using the storytelling potential of the camera to advocate for social justice in Argentina and Rwanda. However, the artistic landscape in the two countries is radically different. Whilst Argentina has a rich history of photographic explorations of loss, absence and injustice, in Rwanda photographers are still looking for new visual languages to articulate their experiences of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The photographers’ virtual meeting and sharing of materials resulted in the generation of new work that was inspired by but does not derive from Quieto's influential photo-essay Arqueología de la ausencia. This essay draws on interviews with Quieto and the Rwandan photographers, provides examples of the work, considers the aesthetic strategies adopted and discusses their significance in the Rwandan context.

Keywords:

• Rwanda
• Argentina
• genocide
• photography
• social justice
• Lucila Quieto

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Noa Vaisman for introducing me to Lucila Quieto and generously translating correspondence between her and the Rwandan photographers. I’d also like to thank Noa and Máire Braniff for their collegiality and intellectual companionship during this project which was funded by AHRC Grant AH/M006115/1. Thanks as well to Maureen Shaughnessy for translating the transcript of the interview with Lucila Quieto, which was funded by AHRC Grant AH/P00492X/1. Finally, and most importantly, thank you to Lucila Quieto, Jean Bizimana, Gadi Habumugisha, Claudia Ingabire, Mussa Uwitonze and Brendan Bannon for these visual and verbal conversations.

Notes

1 The caveat here is that writing about photography has always foregrounded its ‘past’ nature, its ability to explore both death and loss. See, for example, Jay Prosser’s Light in the Dark Room: Photography and Loss.