cu(Rw)ated.
Africa's Creative Meeting Point
In partnership with
Cu(R)ated Rwanda is a month-long creative economy activation running across May 2026, anchored by the Africa CEO Forum and the BAL Finals.
It sequences private buyer dinners, public markets, and immersive maker visits to move people from interest to transaction. Every touchpoint is designed to generate documented commercial connections between Rwanda's creatives and the buyers who can sustain them.
Rwanda is not the backdrop.
It is the meeting point.
Five ways Curated Rwanda moves people from interest to transaction
(1) CONVERSATIONS
Live with Alara
The Creative Roadmap
(2) MEET THE MAKERS
Immersive workshop
and studio visits
(3) POP UP MARKET
Curate African
craft & fashion
(4) LET THEM COOK!
Craft meets food systems
pop up dining
(5) WITH CREATIVE$
Cocreating funding
pathways
Conversations that stress-test the sector — out loud, in the room.
Two live sessions that turn the conversation about African creative retail and Rwanda's creative economy into actual working dialogue — not panels.
In Conversation: Alara × Inzira
A live masterclass with Alara, one of Africa's most respected creative retail voices. Bringing the conversation about building, pricing, and placing African craft into the room with the people doing exactly that. Practical, intimate, and grounded in what it actually takes to move from maker to market.
Rwanda's Creative Economic Roadmap
A live conversation that takes stock of what Rwanda's creative economy is actually building — the makers, the enablers, and the momentum that doesn't always make the headline. Part celebration, part honest mapping of where the gaps are and where new energy is needed.
Meet the Makers
An immersive visit to Ibaba — a chance to meet the hands behind the work, understand the conditions it is made in, and hear the stories that don't travel with the product. Not a tour. A conversation about craft, place, and what it means to buy with intention.
A visit to Kayonza to meet makers working at the intersection of tradition and livelihood: weaving, craft, and community embedded in the Eastern Province landscape. An opportunity to see the full picture of what Rwanda's creative economy looks like outside the capital, and to understand the distance — geographic and economic — that most products travel before they reach a buyer.
Designed for: buyers — retailers, procurement leads, corporate gifting decision-makers, and diaspora consumers who need to meet the work and the maker before they can commit to it.
Pop Up Market.
A curated market bringing together Rwanda's most compelling makers — functional objects, wearables, and edible goods selected for quality, story, and the hands behind them. A place to discover work that doesn't always find its way to a storefront, and to buy directly from the people who made it.
Let Them Cook!
Intimate gatherings hosted by Kigali's home chefs and small food businesses — each one a working demonstration of what a local food system can look like when it functions. The table is set with goods made by local artisans, the food comes from smallholder farmers, and the proceeds go back into the community that produced it.
Not a pop-up. A proof of concept.
For conscious consumers, food and design enthusiasts, international and development professionals looking for Rwanda beyond the conference room, diaspora visitors wanting a genuine point of entry, and buyers who understand that the table is where trust gets built.
Cocreation Session · Musanze
With Creative$
A working session in Musanze that puts financial partners and funders in the room with the creatives they are meant to serve — not to present to them, but to build with them. The goal is to stress-test and shape a funding opportunity in real time, grounded in the realities of making a living from craft in Rwanda. Immersive by design, because the best validation happens in context.
Let's co-create.
If you're a maker, buyer, funder, or partner who wants to be in the room in May 2026 — tell us how you want to show up.