Having parents who collected art was fundamental to Kami Gahiga, co-founding director of the Gihanga Institute of Contemporary Art (GICA) in Kigali, Rwanda's first independent non-profit contemporary art institution. As a child she soon realised that like her mother and father she ‘could not imagine living without art.’ Her creative career path was clear to her early on she says, and in addition to her role at GICA, she holds various other posts, including serving as VIP Representative for Africa at Art Basel.  

Based between Kigali and London, Gahiga graduated with a BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, which was followed with a MA [with distinction] in Art Business from Sotheby's Institute of Art, London. She has subsequently curated exhibitions in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia and regularly contributes to art publications, including Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art (Duke University Press), Sotheby's, Le Quotidien de l'Art, TLmag and GIDA Journal, as well as commissioned essays for galleries and institutions, such as a catalogue essay on Tesfaye Urgessa. Gahiga sits on the Acquisition Committee of MACAAL museum in Marrakech, is a Trustee of the Norval Foundation in Cape Town, is on the selection committee of dot.ateliers artist residency in Accra, and serves on the advisory board of the Tyburn Foundation in Harare and Umbria. She received the 2026 Women in Leadership Award (WILSa) in art and culture. 

Currently on view at GICA is ‘Space Encounters’ curated by Rwandan curator Ngaara Dan and focused on emerging voices from East Africa, including Natnael Ashebir, Ribka Sisay, Doddrige Busingye, Moses Izabiriza, Nelson Niyakire among others.  

1. Do you have an early memory that you think connects to your creative path now?  

Art was present from a very young age. I remember being taken to museums and galleries, meeting artists, and my family hosting dinners around incredible creative minds growing up in Geneva. Omar Ba, a Senegalese painter, was among them, as was the late Swiss collector Thierry Barbier-Mueller, a close friend of my father and an extraordinary collector of contemporary art, numerous paintings as well as a substantial collection of design chairs. 

My mother enjoys painting on ceramics and my father always treated art as something essential to have in our lives. I also remember his library being filled with art books from all over the world. As a child, I could open a book and encounter an artist, a country or an entire visual language that I had never seen before. My parents actively collected. I soon could not imagine living without art either and decided to make a career of it.

2. What is art to you and what is it for?  

Art to me is essential to our well-being, it appeals to the senses, to the mind and soul. I feel a genuine need to be exposed to it. In a broader sense, art allows us to project ourselves beyond our own experience, and helps us understand ourselves and others better. Prior to veering into art business and management, I studied political science and international relations. Had I chosen to work in diplomacy like my grandfather, I would probably be actively advocating for countries to adopt a serious cultural agenda because it brings so many benefits to society as a whole.  

This belief is central to our work at the Gihanga Institute of Contemporary Art in Kigali. I am interested in creating spaces where art is truly perceived as vital, as a core part of our lives, making it accessible to everyone and continuing to carve a place for imagination, conversation, memory and intellectual life.

3. Who has been the biggest influence on you to date?  

Julie Mehretu’s Stadia I (2004). I have been returning to this work for more than a decade and no other artwork has the same effect on me. The density of the work, the architecture, movement, histories and different visual languages existing simultaneously, I find it endlessly compelling. It feels so alive and yet very controlled.  

4. What things are you excited about for the future?   

I am very excited to see Magdalene Odundo’s forthcoming exhibition at the Barbican [opening in September 2027]. I've admired the work for a long time, her ceramics are simultaneously ancient and contemporary.

5. How would you define beauty?  

For me, beauty is connected to singularity. I am usually drawn to what is distinctive, unexpected or slightly out of the ordinary. I don't think beauty necessarily means perfection, sometimes beauty resides in  the irregularity of things.