IS THERE HOPE IN OUR MUSEUMS, OR HAVE THEY BECOME BURIAL SITES FOR FRAGMENTS OF INFORMATION?

Africa is very rich in history, culture, people, knowledge, and stories. We have so much to preserve and protect. Yet, when we enter the places where we expect to find the richness of our continent, we sometimes find very little that reflects the depth of what Africa truly carries.

According to UNESCO (2026), Africa is estimated to have between 900 and 1,000 museums across the continent.

Despite its immense cultural diversity and heritage, Africa is home to less than 1% of the world’s museums, approximately 0.8% to 0.9%.

Rwanda, as a whole country, has only a small number of well-known museums, with eight national museums, alongside one independent museum that I created, which is currently temporarily closed due to a lack of support.

For those who know much about the world and travel frequently, when you are in Kigali, many services and aspects of the city may feel familiar to what you experience in Europe or America. Yet, sometimes, when you visit our museums, you suddenly realize that you are in Africa, not because of the richness of what you find, but because of what appears to be missing.

The simple question is:

Are museums in Rwanda, or in Africa, designed to become burial sites for information and fragments of history?

Why can you not visualize the future and find hope in our museums?

As an artist who fell in love with museums, and who once dreamed of creating one, Museum Ingabo, I have been questioning people about their experiences visiting museums, especially fellow citizens.

Let me highlight some of the answers I have received.

Question: Have you visited museums here in Rwanda?

Answer 1: “Yes, only in 2019. There is nothing new to see.”

Answer 2: “No. I only visited your museum at Rebero and Kigali Genocide Memorial.”

Answer 3: “There is nothing to see here.”

Answer 4: “I swear, if it is not about honoring my beloved ones, I cannot even go back to Memorial. What I saw five years ago is almost the same as what I see today.”

With so many different answers, one can begin to see that there is a distance between citizens and their museums.

Perhaps the deeper problem is not simply the number of museums we have, but the relationship people have with them.

OUR MUSEUMS ARE BECOMING VIEW-ONCE SITES.

You visit once.

You see what is there.

You leave.

And there is little reason to return.

The question is very simple:

Why can’t you find HOPE and FUTURE in our museums?

Who designed them?

Who curated them?

Who decided how our history should be experienced?

In other parts of the world, museums are increasingly designed around their communities. They use technology, art, architecture, design, research, and interactive experiences to educate, engage, and raise the curiosity of both young and old.

Museums are becoming places where people do not simply look at history, they question it, experience it, discuss it, and connect it to the present and the future.

Why can’t we do the same?

As an artist who once tried to provide an answer through the creation of an independent museum, and who eventually lost the support of the people in charge, I believe I understand where some of the problems are.

There are things I could say.

There are questions I could ask.

But I cannot write everything.

So, for now, I will simply highlight the question.

Perhaps the future of our museums depends on whether we are willing to ask uncomfortable questions about how they are designed, who they are designed for, how they are curated, and what kind of experience they are meant to create.

Because museums should not only preserve what happened yesterday.

They should help us imagine what can happen tomorrow.

As I conclude:

IT HURTS TO SEE OUR MUSEUMS HAVE SO LITTLE HOPE AND FUTURE INSIDE THEM. THERE ARE TOO OFTEN ONLY BURIAL SITES OF INFORMATION AND FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY.

OUR MUSEUMS SHOULD NOT BE PLACES WHERE HISTORY GOES TO REST.

THEY SHOULD BE PLACES WHERE HISTORY COMES ALIVE.