For its fourth edition, which will take place from November 9th to November 13th, 2022, Hamwe Festival will propose a reflection on the relationships between mental health and cultural heritage.  

With creatives, clinicians, scholars, museum professionals, and others, we will discuss cultural heritage, its accessibility, the principles guiding its management and the impact these have on mental health across space and time. Indeed, the actions of creation, management, conservation, and transmission of cultural heritage, include in and exclude from collective narratives, create memory and history. These powerful acts possibly orient how social interactions and systems are constructed. It is proven that knowledge and valorization of cultural heritage strengthen self-esteem and community cohesion and impact mental health and well-being in the present and the future.  

To nurture this reflection, UGHE invites two creatives to “listen” to historical sound recordings from Rwanda and other places with German researcher, artist, and curator Anette Hoffmann and create sound installations discussing the power of these materials as well as their importance for creative scenes in the present.  

Selected artists will be compensated for their work and time. They will also be provided with a production budget and the mentorship and support of Anette Hoffmann and the project team.

About Anette Hoffmann  

Anette Hoffmann engages with historical sound collections and archives of colonial history by means of close listening, translating, and re-connecting recorded songs and spoken words to related textual and visual archival traces. To date, her sound installations and exhibitions have been shown in Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, South Africa and Nambia. She authored a few books amongst them African prisoners of war Knowing by Ear (Duke University Press later in 2022) and Echoes of Coercive Knowledge Production in Historical Sound Recordings from Southern Africa (Basler Africa Bibliographien, 2022). She currently works on the articulation of language and concepts of race in the history of African Studies in Germany at the University of Cologne. Hoffmann is also an associated fellow at the Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Eligibility: 

The call for applications is open to all artists residing in Rwanda capable of demonstrating the necessary experience to deliver on the project. Interested artists should apply by Sunday, August 14th, 2022, at 11:59 PM, CAT. 

To apply, candidates must submit:  

• A completed application form: link  
• The candidate’s biography (maximum 300 words) 
• Samples of previous works 

 For any questions, please contact the program team at hamwe@157.245.250.106