UCLA

This dissertation examines art collections in Rwanda between two pivotal moments: the arrival of Catholic missionaries in 1900 and the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. During this period, the kingdom of Rwanda underwent profound transformations through growing missionary influence, colonial occupation, the erosion of traditional power structures, national independence, and intensifying ethnic divisions. Within this context, significant collections of art emerged at regional sites in Nyanza, Kabgayi, and Huye: a royal collection, a missionary museum, and an ethnographic museum, respectively. My research investigates how Rwandan artists, local leaders, museum practitioners, and cultural heritage workers actively shaped these collections. Through object-based examination, archival research, and extensive fieldwork and interviews, I explore their roles in preserving, documenting, and displaying objects once used by communities in Rwanda. By tracing the histories of specific objects, such as a royal quiver and a ritual drum, I demonstrate how these collections constructed notions of history and identity independent of colonial and missionary-sanctioned narratives. My research also reveals collaborations between missionaries and royal leaders, and instances where the king of Rwanda and object guardians granted colonial officers access to collections they displayed for the purposes of documentation. Throughout the dissertation, I demonstrate how collections in twentieth-century Rwanda consistently reflected Rwandan agency in preservation and display. This research represents the first comprehensive examination of art collections in Rwanda. Although scholars have previously studied aspects of the Ethnographic Museum—formerly the National Museum of Rwanda—my work significantly expands this scholarship through extensive archival research and interviews with museum practitioners who shaped the collection’s development and preservation. The dissertation also engages in provenance research by examining changes in object ownership, as well as the rich human narratives of those who created, collected, and preserved these materials. By centering the stories of people—particularly Rwandans—in its examination of collections, this study reveals how local actors shaped even those institutions labeled as missionary or colonial museums.