Monday March 7th at 14.00-15.00 UK, so 15.00 in Nigeria, 16.00 in Rwanda & South Africa, 15.00 in Kampala.

How have artists in Africa explored the effects of COVID-19 over the past two years? What glimpses can the arts offer us of individual experiences and challenges? What spaces can they open up for connection and reflection as we grapple with the ongoing legacies?

This panel brings together two prize-winning photographers and the Director of the Hamwe festival in Rwanda to discuss these questions in the context of Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda. We’ll look at the creative process in responding to crisis, the relationship of the artist with their subjects, the circulation of these stories and the ways in which other fields, particularly health and social care, are responding to this work.

The panel will also remember Aisha Bada, a talented photographer and health professional who spoke at the Hamwe festival and who sadly died earlier this year.

About the panel

Andrew Esiebo is a visual storyteller whose photography explores themes such as sexuality, gender, football, popular culture, migration and spirituality. He has published his work in National Geographic, New York Times, Le Point, The Guardian and more, and his photographs have been shown at exhibitions and festivals from Brazil to Bangladesh. Based in Lagos, his Coro Angels series documented Nigeria’s healthcare workers responding to the first wave of the pandemic. It foregrounds the personal costs of frontline work, the extreme challenges they faced and their quiet daily heroism.

DeLovie Kwagala is a non binary queer self taught photographer and social activist from Kampala whose work offers intimate reflections on identity, belonging, social injustice and gender-sexuality. Their photographs have been published in The Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Zam Magazine, and more. In 2021 they won the East African Photography Award and were named 1 of 10 Black women photographers to watch by PH Museum. Their ongoing Through the Cracks project examines Intimate Partner Violence within the LGBTIQ community, aggravated by the pandemic, through tender, reflective portraits.

Injonge Karangwa is a Rwandan musician, health professional and Founder and Director of Hamwe Festival at the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda. The festival celebrates and encourages contributions of the creative industries in the global health field and generates new insights into global wellbeing. In 2021 Hamwe explored “Pandemics, Confinement and Social Changes”, offering an African-led forum bringing together artists, writers, performers and academics.

Zoe Norridge (Chair) is a Reader in African & Comparative Literature & Visual Cultures at King’s. She recently co-edited a special issue of Wasafiri magazine on Human Rights Cultures in Rwanda, Kenya, Colombia and Argentina, translated Yolande Mukagasana’s survivor testimony Not My Time to Die and presented the BBC Radio 4 documentary Rwanda’s Returnees. She is a member of the AHRC Rights for Time Network Plus.

This event is supported by the African Leadership Centre and the Department of Comparative Literature.