The black-and-white photos, shot on Ilford HP5 35mm film, show the community’s “struggle with water,” Katz said. Next to a photo of a typical home built from mud, straw and volcanic rock, a placard written by Katz explains that frequent earthquakes cause homes and other buildings to collapse, and the damaged infrastructure leaves communities even more vulnerable to waterborne diseases.

Another photo shows the home of a family where Katz was assigned to conduct health checks — the text beside it explains that an 8-month-old girl in the house became ill from waterborne disease and malnutrition and eventually died.

“That devastating experience really drove this project,” Katz said. “Before finding out about the child’s passing, I had taken a picture of the family’s bean garden, because I thought it was really pretty. I decided to share that photo as a way to talk about what the family had gone through.”

The exhibition also includes photos of community health workers dedicated to helping their fellow citizens in the remote village. Katz’s depiction of life in rural Rwanda was compelling to the medical school art committee, which unanimously approved the proposal to display the photos.

“The exhibit beautifully illustrates something that is taught over and over throughout our medical curriculum: the social determinants of health,” said Kris Cambra, chair of the art committee at the Warren Alpert Medical School. “If your patient does not have adequate food, shelter, or as in this case, access to clean water, there is little a physician can do to help the patient. You have to solve the root of the problem.”

Cambra praised Katz for telling the story of the interaction between community health workers and their patients “with great compassion and sensitivity.” 

Katz became interested in photography during the COVID-19 pandemic, after finding his father’s 1960s camera in the basement of his childhood home. He brought the camera with him to Rwanda figuring he’d snap photos of landscapes and wildlife. He hadn’t expected to use it as a change agent. To date, his photographs have helped Move Up Global raise more than $15,000 to build wells in rural Rwanda. 

“The experience in Rwanda has deeply shaped my path in medicine — fueling my passion for global health research and advocacy,” said Katz, who is interested in pursuing global medicine and is completing a scholarly concentration in medical humanities.

Now in his second year of medical school, Katz will present on his research in November at a conference in Toronto on tropical medicine. He is also working on multiple projects with Brown faculty that combine photography and health care.

“These projects have reinforced my belief in the power of combining medicine and photography as tools for advocacy and storytelling,” Katz said. “Photography has become a way for me to amplify voices, spotlight structural health inequities and connect people across borders — while also grounding my own identity as a future physician.”

The exhibit is open to the public on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m.