In Kigali, Rwanda, a New Wave of Creative Projects Worth Traveling For

19.10.2023 - 20:53 / cntraveler.com / New Wave / Art

When the artist Emmanuel Nkuranga opened his second gallery in Kigali in 2019—his first, launched with his brother a decade ago, kick-started the local contemporary art scene—he called it Choose Kigali.

The name proved prophetic. In the last few years, the leafy, high-altitude East African capital has become a sustainability-minded creative hot spot, sprouting ethical design studios, coffee shops (Rwandan-grown bourbon beans are among the world’s most prized), and farm-to-fork restaurants harnessing the volcanic soils of the bio-diverse Albertine Rift.

A generation after the genocide, which left 70% of its population under the age of 35, Rwanda has become one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies and also one of the greenest. A third of its rolling terrain is being rewilded, plastic bags and single-use plastics are banned, and a green-certified airport is under construction. Meanwhile, anti-corruption policies and the removal of bureaucratic red tape have been enticing the young Rwandan and Bantu diaspora to return and reapply their training abroad to home-grown creativity.

The chef Dieuveil Malonga of Meza Malonga

The interior of Meza Malonga

“Rwanda is an avant-garde country and it feels like the African future is here now,” says Dieuveil Malonga, who was born in the Congo and grew up in Germany. He traveled to as many as 50 African nations before settling on Kigali for his Afro-fusion food project, Meza Malonga, which featured on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2022.

“We’ve had 20 years of miraculous green growth,” says Tanzanian model and Kigali local Winnie Kalisa. She opened Laini, a ceramics studio, in 2019 in the Kimihurura district, near Choose Kigali and the studio of Afro-futurist fashion designer Moses Turahirwa. “Now, it feels like anything is possible.”

The model and ceramist Winnie Kalisa of Laini

Dieuveil Malonga — the revolutionary chef

Dieuveil Malonga’s baseball cap and cheeky grin belie his steely commitment to changing the global image of Afro-fusion cuisine. His tasting menu at Meza Malonga—where he also trains chefs—features pan-African botanicals, pre-colonial matriarchal recipes, and produce grown in his seven-acre allotments on Lake Ruhondo, near the Volcanoes National Park. On these volcanic soils, he is opening a second food project with rooms, featuring guest appearances from members of his 4,000-strong Chefs in Africa association, cementing the agricultural Musanze district’s status as a farm-to-fork hub. mezamalonga.com

Moses Turahirwa — the fashion futurist

“Rwandans have an innate creative eye,” says Moses Turahirwa, a designer and a trained civil engineer who earned his master's degree in fashion at Florence’s prestigious Polimoda. “We grow up surrounded