KAMWE
KAMWE A hundred days of death. A hundred days in one outfit. From April 7th to July 4th, 1994, Genocide Survivors wandered through horror, wearing the same torn, bloodstained clothes. For one hundred days, they ran. They hid. They fought to stay alive.
Year
2025
Medium
Installation
Dimensions
Clothes ( 1994)
They hid in forests, their bodies pressed against rough tree bark, their breath shallow, afraid to make a sound. They curled up in pit latrines, covering their mouths, swallowing their own cries. They lay in rivers, half-submerged, the cold biting their skin as they pretended to be lifeless. They crawled through swamps, the thick mud swallowing their feet, their clothes heavy with filth.
Have you ever wondered what it was like? To be a mother, carrying life inside her, while surrounded by death? To give birth in the dark, in the dirt, silencing your own screams, just to survive? To cradle a newborn in trembling arms, with no blanket, no home, no clean water, only fear?
Imagine a young girl, her body changing, yet no soap, no cloth, no comfort, just the same dress, the same skirt, the same t-shirt. Imagine a child, wearing one outfit for 100 days.
One outfit through the rainy season.
One outfit soaked in swamp water.
One outfit drenched in sweat, in blood, in grief.
A hundred days. No change of clothes. No relief.
Full of blood. Full of swamp. Full of tears. Full of rain.
"AKENDA KAMWE KAMBAWE MU MINSI IJANA."
"ONE OUTFIT DRESSED IN A HUNDRED DAYS."