Photographs by Olaf Heine
During the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, up to one million Tutsi were murdered by Hutu members, 80 percent of the surviving women were raped. Today, perpetrators and victims live side by side. While women have steadily gained influence in society since then, rape victims and their children are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. However, many young women manage to pick up their traumatized mothers and free themselves from the stigma. The courage and confidence of these strong women in a society marked by trauma and ruled by authoritarianism is unprecedented.
Sexualized violence in military conflicts is a deliberate part of war strategies, as we are unfortunately currently seeing in Ukraine and Israel. To mark the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, the Kunsthalle Rostock is presenting "Rwandan Daughters" by Olaf Heine. The exhibition attempts to explore how the mothers and daughters dealt with these terrible events and how they tried to overcome the atrocities and physical and mental abuse they experienced. Photographer Olaf Heine has visualized this turning point and the process of coming to terms with it expressively on location, portraying mothers and daughters side by side at the scene of the events.
Olaf
Heine (*1968) is a photographer and director. He studied photography and design at the Lette-Verein in Berlin and is best known for his detailed and carefully staged portraits of musicians, actors, writers, visual artists, sportsmen and architecture and landscape photography. His works have been published on numerous album covers, in international editorials and in photo books and have been exhibited at Camera Work Galerie Berlin, Folkwang Museum Essen, Noorderlicht Fotogalerie in Groningen and Icon Gallery in Los Angeles, among others.
