Artist spotlight: Iirumva Isaac

Written By Chloe Asker

This blog post focuses on the work of Iirumva Isaac, a Rwandan artist. He is one of the artists commissioned for the Culture Box Show. Chloe (Culture Box’s Postdoctoral Research Associate) spoke to Isaac over Zoom for this interview.

I chatted to Iirumva over Zoom: him in his home in Rwanda and me in my flat in Exeter. It was a privilege to connect with him and learn more about his practice, ethos, and intentions for his commission with the Culture Box Show.

Iirumva Isaac is a Rwandan contemporary artist. He defines his art as Twenty First century contemporary, influenced by global culture and technological advancement. He has been an artist for around 8 years, and his art is a dynamic combination of his perspectives and societal collectives, such as cultural dialogues, identities, characters, and memories. He told me that his main mediums are painting and storytelling.

Isaac’s work is heavily influenced by the idea and practice of community, gaining inspiration from living and being in the community. He explained:

“Working with the community is the only way I know how to express myself. It’s always about people around you, so I gain inspiration from those people. So, you know that’s how I always find myself working.”

Subsequently, he has worked on many projects immersed in community settings. Two projects that stick out for me were his works on womanhood and the painting ‘In The Barbershop’. His work is relational and has an intimacy, combined with the striking colours and bold brush strokes, it’s a joy to view. Fundamentally, the work is about relationships, in that:

“We need that connection with others. I try to bring that concept into my paintings. So at least the people who view my craft and things, they can get the message from what I do...”

The Culture Box commission came at a fortuitus moment, he had already been working on his project “Personal challenges of the pandemic” when the call was announced. His project explores the challenges a few of the many narratives of his community’s mental health during yet another lockdown in Kigali, Rwanda. Poignantly, Isaac reflected that:

“We all have mental health, so whatever can help me out can also help you out. We all have experiences with it, they might be different, but we all have them”

Cohabitating, sharing space, and things without the habitual 9-5 or spontaneous visit to a friend. the lockdown reshapes the relationships we have with our space, our belongings and housemates. Our mental states play a key role in the progression of our relationships, and so the progression of our lives. He reflected on his experience of lockdown – that it had offered him space to think which provided him with a different perspective:

“I spent most of the time alone! When the pandemic came, it didn’t hit that bad for me because I didn’t have any clients at the time. But staying inside, staying indoors…. Staying indoors in the pandemic, it’s really given me a really different perspective because we all faced something, we all faced the lockdown. Sitting inside really give me the ability to think, it’s not, to think more because this event was so unexpected. It really has affected me in so many ways. Even creating these ideas is from what I experienced in the lockdown. It’s the same effect that people around the world faced, it’s the same.”

In his attempt to bring people closer in times of ambiguous distancing; IIrumva compiled a few of his art pieces to touch on mental health as our bodies and minds adapt to lockdown, facemasks, remote work, and PCR tests among other things that came with this global pandemic. IIrumva lives in an urban neighbourhood right in the heart of Kigali, near the Kigali Convention Centre landmark, known as mu Rugando. Here he has observed the different ways in which the residents behave, which he is convinced everyone no matter where they live or where they are from must have in common. Exploring the theme of mental health, his intent is to create pieces that build up to an unveiling of mental health issues in his nuclear community.

He reflected that the project offered him an opportunity to grow as an artist through learning from and being inspired by different people:

“I get inspired from different people; I try to understand others. When it comes to the community it’s always going to involve culture. So it’s allowed me to really expand my knowledge and my experience. Working with all these different people, it’s great, it’s really made me grow. In one way or another.”

For him it was about putting himself in other people’s shows to understand their perspectives and life experiences:

“Working on the Culture Box commission was actually a great opportunity to, as an artist, to try to understand perspective and view from other people, you know, the way they see things, you know, it’s to step into their shoes and see what, you can see what they face every day. Whilst working on the project, it’s really… Especially on this project, it made me, as an artist, to try to see the world from how others from my community see, the way they see it.”

He saw his role as an artist to be a unique one, he was able to make a bridge or forge a bond between people in order to create a community where these experiences could be shared:

“It was to try to make a bridge between people, to try to make a bond, to try to understand how it feels to be in this situation, rather than to judge others because we’ve all had this shared experience. Around here in Rwanda, it’s really difficult to have someone to connect to. As an artist, it was actually a chance to get that kind of expression from people. It was a chance to understand how people live their lives, and to accept them. Especially here in Rwanda because it’s hard to find someone to talk about this stuff to.”

This work prompted discussions and reflections from the people that he worked with, it offered them a means to find a new language in order to communicate their experience. He reflected that often mental health issues are kept private in Rwanda, and in so doing, they are not discussed and there is a lack of knowledge of how to deal with them.

“In Rwanda, there are a lot of shared issues. Everyone, actually everyone in the whole world, we all have this time where our mental health suffers. In Rwanda it’s a little bit different because people they don’t really know that mental health really exists. There are other ways they describe it. Working on mental health allows for more interaction with others. You always say things from here [places hand on chest]. Being with them for even just a few minutes, it’s really, and talking around the mental health: ‘how did you make it through the lockdown?’, ‘how did the lockdown shape lives?’. At the end of their time speaking, they end up having an idea of what mental health really is for them. Sometimes they don’t have the words or know exactly how to express themselves.”

His positionality as an artist allowed him to talk to a range of different people as his identity interested people, sparking conversations:

“As an artist, it was really easy to get people talking because I was like “hey I’m working on this, do you mind chatting to me even for a few minutes?” and the fact I’m an artist, and the fact that I was walking around the community. Luckily the people that I met; they shared their experience with me.”

It also provoked interest in the wider community with people approaching him to ask him what he was doing. On the whole, his intention for the project is to ignite a conversation around mental health, his modest outlook means that he does not see the project as a solution to the issue but rather a catalyst to have these meaningful and transformative discussions together. He uses the metaphor of the bridge to describe the relational and interconnected intentions of his commission:

“I feel like this project can be a bridge between us. It can open up ways of expressing ourselves. People shared their experience, what they’d been through. I feel that it’s really effective because people tried to express themselves. I think this work will allow people to express themselves. But I’m not saying that this project will solve every problem that we’re facing but it can be something that can help people. Because if someone sees someone else sharing their experience, it might encourage them to do the same. That’s what I love about community, it’s the practice of getting people together – you make them feel like they’re not a stranger, that there’s a community that’s there ready to listen to you. It’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

His work in this area is continuing, he is currently working on a residency for the second edition of Stigma, Power and hope: The Ageing Journey of Rwandans, please find more info about it in these links below:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb7x-e2gLlU/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

https://www.instagram.com/tv/Cb7yIW6gmF2/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Chloe Asker
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