At a Rwandan wedding, gifts often arrive in an agaseke, a lidded basket patterned with zigzags and triangles. In the east of the country, walls and panels are decorated with imigongo: bold black, red and white geometric designs that stand out from the surface. These traditions show that pattern is more than decoration. It carries identity, meaning and skill passed from one generation to the next, and it is a rich source of ideas for your own printed designs.
2Imigongo
What it is: a Rwandan art form, traditionally made by women, in which geometric patterns are built up in raised relief (standing out from a flat surface) and then painted. It was made on the inside walls of houses; today it is also made on wooden panels, boards and pottery.
Material: cow dung mixed with ash. The ash helps the mixture harden and removes the smell. The mixture is shaped by hand into ridges, left to dry hard, and then coloured.
Colours: traditionally black, white and red-brown made from natural materials, sometimes with grey and a yellowish beige.
History: imigongo comes from the east, the area of the old kingdom of Gisaka. A well-known story says that Prince Kakira of Gisaka first made it to decorate the inside of houses. After the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi the skill had almost disappeared; a women's cooperative near Kirehe, in the Eastern Province, revived it, and imigongo is now made and sold across Rwanda.
Motifs: zigzags, chevrons, triangles, diamonds nested inside one another, and spirals, both rounded and square. Strong black-and-white contrast and careful symmetry give the designs their energy. Because the ridges stand up, light makes small shadows along them, so every pattern also has texture.
3Agaseke
What it is: a traditional Rwandan basket with a flat, round base, a body taller than it is wide, and a pointed, cone-shaped lid. The plural is uduseke.
How the pattern is made: the basket is built by coiling: a bundle of plant fibre is wound round and round in a spiral, and each round is stitched to the one below. Stitches in naturally dyed fibre build up zigzags, triangles and diamonds on the pale natural colour. Different patterns can carry their own meanings.
Meaning: uduseke are used to carry food and gifts when visiting family and at weddings, so they stand for peace and goodwill between families. Elders often give one to a new bride to wish her luck and strength. A traditional basket also appears on the national emblem of Rwanda.
Two arrangements in one object: seen from above, the coiled lid is a radial pattern; round the body, the designs run as border patterns.
4Respecting a living tradition
Imigongo and agaseke are made today by living artists, many of them in cooperatives. Take inspiration from the tradition: its motifs, colours and rules. Do not copy one particular artist's piece and present it as your own, and name the tradition when you show or sell your work. Buying from the makers keeps the skill alive.
Worked example: an imigongo-inspired border
Keza wants a border of interlocking triangles: red triangles pointing up and black triangles pointing down, printed on off-white paper.
Grid: she rules 3 cm squares along the strip. Each triangle's points sit on grid corners, so every triangle is exactly the same.
Separation: stencil 1 carries the red triangles; stencil 2 carries the black ones. Because the triangles touch, she makes the black triangles 1 mm bigger along their edges.
Registration: both stencils get matching corner triangles, which she marks on the strip.
Order: red first (it is lighter), dry, then black.
Check: any white slivers between triangles mean the second stencil was out of register.
5Make it: your own heritage border
Sketch three motifs from imigongo or agaseke, from real objects, books or museum photographs.
Choose one and redraw it in a 5 cm square on a pencil grid, joining grid points with a ruler.
Choose two earth colours; the paper gives the third.
Cut two stencils with matching registration marks, and plan a block or mirror repeat along a strip.
Print the lighter colour, let it dry, then print the darker colour.
Evaluate: are the edges sharp, the spacing even, the registration accurate? Does the design show the spirit of the tradition without copying one piece?
6Look closely
These woven baskets from Rwanda are kept in the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium.
On the large bowl at the top, black and red zigzag bands run round and round the basket, following the coil.
On the smaller bowls, long, pointed triangles in black point towards the centre: a radial arrangement built from a border motif.
On the right is a small pointed lid, the same cone shape that tops an agaseke.
Notice the limited palette: pale natural fibre, black and red, the same family of colours as imigongo.
Woven baskets from Rwanda in the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium. Photo: Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Warning
Safety
The blade rules from the stencil lesson apply: cut on a board, keep your other hand behind the blade, and close the blade when you put it down.
The colour rules from the two-colour lesson apply: an adult does any boiling, never taste colours, label every jar, and wash your hands after printing.
Tip
Grid, earth colours, strong contrast. Nearly every imigongo and agaseke motif can be drawn by joining points on a square grid with a ruler. Keep to black, red and off-white, and let the dark and light shapes interlock.
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Practice
1
Name the traditional colours of imigongo and the main material it is made from.
Show solutionHide solution
Solution: black, white and red-brown; cow dung mixed with ash.
2
Why is imigongo described as a relief art?
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Solution: the patterns are raised ridges that stand out from the flat surface, so they have texture and cast small shadows.
3
What is an agaseke used for, and what does it stand for?
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Solution: it carries food and gifts when visiting family and at weddings; it stands for peace and goodwill between families.
4
Your class wants to sell cards printed with an exact copy of a panel made by a named cooperative artist. Is this fair? What would be better?
Show solutionHide solution
Solution: no; it copies one artist's work without permission. Design your own motifs inspired by the tradition, and name imigongo on the card.
Remember
Imigongo: raised geometric patterns in cow dung and ash, painted black, white and red; from the east of Rwanda.
Agaseke: a coiled, lidded basket; its patterns are stitched in dyed fibre; it stands for peace and goodwill.
Take inspiration, not copies, and name the tradition you learned from.
Sources and credits
Lesson text, making steps, diagrams and practice: written by Ganzaa.
