RWANDA

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These drawings in sepia reflect Ciska's personal experiences in and memories of East Congo and Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 at the time of the genocide. During her work for Medecins sans Frontiere Ciska was send to this area to help the victims in this area at the beginning of the genocide. She spend a lot of time with people in refugee camps and saw the results of vicious murderous attacks. She listened to the stories of women who had been gang raped several times and who had seen family members and loved ones being slaughtered in front of their eyes.

 

These memories and images hunted Ciska for years preventing her from finding peace of mind and sleeping during night time.

The stories of people, the dead bodies scattered around in the open fields, the smell of death, all of that made her an insomniac for years. Like her bed sculpture Splinter, she needed to work through these memories and started making a serie of drawings ‘Rwanda’.