Christian Nyampeta and the École du Soir

This video centres on the lecture given by Rwandan artist, musician and film-maker Christian Nyampeta inside the framework of the second instalment of the Cinema Commons series. Nyampeta, invited by the Museo, was unable to travel to Madrid and delivered this lecture from his studio, expounding the meaning and scope of his body of work, through which he explores pedagogies and community forms of knowledge production and transmission — the approach of Ècole du soir, a project he conceived as a mobile space of collective learning.    

The artist goes on to present his unreleased work Director’s Notes, inspired by the book Carnets d’Amérique by Congolese writer and philosopher Valentine-Yves Mudimbe. The video piece is a soundless collective creation with YouTube scapes and contains the episode Bel-immonde by artist Magellan Kahozi, based on Mudimbe’s same-titled book. In the work, Nyampeta outlines his reasons for living in New York and his difficulties as a foreigner. An emotional, reflexive journey and a plea against violence inflicted on the most vulnerable people.