‘The Trilogy’, a week-long photography exhibition by Hakim Rachid, also known as Umuntuu, is set to take place from January 20-27, at Atelier Academy. It will be open to the public in Kigali at Atelier academy from 6pm - 10pm, free of charge.

The exhibition highlights three series from Hakim's photography practice that he started working on since embarking into the career in 2022. The series featured in ‘The Trilogy’ are ‘Walking in Black’, ‘Beauty Redefined’ and ‘Female Lines’.

The evening will kick off with conversations and discussions around the exhibited artworks. The exhibition features over 50 photographs taken between the years of 2020 and 2023, which includes postcards of Hakim’s pictures made in collaboration with his subjects.

"When shooting the 'Walking in Black Series', I used to take a day and shoot different things and people that caught my attention. The artwork in this series was taken in black and white. I wanted to also portray the beauty of women contrary to body shaming that affects many women, to showcase that everyone is beautiful in their own form,” he said.

Hakim Rachid gained recognition in the Kigali art community after his early works that encouraged body positivity and humility with the photography series such as ‘Her’ and ‘Walking in Black’.

The Trilogy also marks a partnership between Umuntuu and L'espace, a renowned creative lab, gallery, private theatre and production studio in Kigali. More details about the anticipated photography exhibition are on the Umuntuu's website https://www.umuntuu.com.

About Hakim

The artist started off doing collages and later on picked an interest in photography. In 2020, he then started taking pictures to document artworks he was interested in as a way of telling stories, while raising awareness to certain topics. From there he developed a series of pictures reflecting on different ideas he had. Each series raised attention to a certain topic and from these ideas the Trilogy exhibition was rebirthed.