Topic
Textiles, carving, beadwork and the makers behind them.
A loose, colourful tunic from West Africa became a statement of Black pride in 1960s America, and its famous "Angelina" print is now worn worldwide. Here is the story of the dashiki.
In the 1980s and 1990s, travelling video clubs in Ghana hired local painters to advertise films on flour sacks. The results were wild, bloody, funny and brilliant, and now hang in galleries around the world.
A rectangle of printed cotton with a bold border, a central design and a Swahili proverb. The kanga is worn, gifted and used to send messages along the East African coast.
Wide beaded collars, earrings, headbands and bracelets in brilliant red, blue, white and green. For the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania, beadwork speaks of age, marriage, wealth and belonging.
Woven so tightly they can hold beer, Zulu baskets of ilala palm are among Africa's finest. And in the 20th century, weavers found a new material: colourful telephone wire.
Painted in reverse on the back of a sheet of glass, Senegalese souwère pictures show saints, heroes, mermaids and everyday life in bright colours. Here is the story of a popular art.
Thick white Beni Ourain rugs, bold Azilal designs and colourful rag-rugs called boucherouite. Amazigh women of Morocco have woven carpets that carry memory, protection and personal stories.
In a covered street beside one of Cairo's medieval gates, craftsmen stitch brilliant appliqué panels by hand. Khayamiya, the tentmakers' art, has decorated Egyptian celebrations for centuries.
Thousands of hand-cut pieces of glazed clay, fitted together into dazzling stars and interlacing patterns. Zellige is one of Morocco's most celebrated crafts, and its makers still work by hand.
For centuries, the Baganda have made cloth by beating the inner bark of the mutuba tree. The tree survives and regrows its bark. UNESCO recognises this as one of the world's oldest textile crafts.
Bold colours, named patterns and a history that runs from Java to the Netherlands to the markets of West Africa. Wax print is everywhere, and its story is more surprising than most people think.
Thousands of flattened liquor-bottle caps, stitched together with copper wire, become vast, glittering "cloths." Ghanaian artist El Anatsui is one of the world's most celebrated sculptors.
In the studios of Bamako, two photographers created portraits of confidence, fashion and joy that are now celebrated as masterpieces of 20th-century photography.
Igbo women once painted delicate, curving designs on skin and walls with a dark plant dye called uli. In the 1970s, Nigerian artists turned it into a modern art movement.
Processional crosses of bronze and silver, hand crosses carried by priests, tiny pendants on blue cords: Ethiopia's crosses are among the most intricate religious art in the world.
Among the Akan of Ghana, a carved wooden stool is far more than furniture. It holds the spirit of its owner, and blackened ancestral stools are the heart of royal power.
Among the Bamana of Mali, carved antelope headdresses honour Chiwara, a mythical being who taught people to farm. They are among the most admired sculptures in African art.
Lifelike copper-alloy and terracotta heads made in the Yoruba city of Ile-Ife some 600–800 years ago are among the finest sculptures ever made in Africa. Here is their story.
Smooth, polished stone figures of spirits, families and animals: Zimbabwe's modern stone sculpture movement began in the late 1950s and won acclaim in Paris and New York.
In the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, a thick wool blanket worn like a cloak marks every stage of life. Here is the story of the Basotho blanket and the mokorotlo hat.
Patterns tied, stitched or painted on with cassava paste, then dyed deep blue in indigo: adire is the resist-dyed cloth of the Yoruba, a craft led by women for generations.
Large almond-shaped eyes, flat bright colours and bold outlines: Ethiopian church art has its own unmistakable style, developed over more than a thousand years.
For centuries, the Akan of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire weighed gold dust with small brass figures of people, animals and symbols. Many carry proverbs. Here is their story.
A fisherman buried in a giant fish, a pilot in an aeroplane, a cocoa farmer in a cocoa pod: among the Ga of Ghana, coffins are sculptures that celebrate a life.
Carved from African blackwood, Makonde sculptures twist dozens of human figures into a single column, or conjure strange spirit beings. Here is the story of a remarkable art.
In the Congo, the Kuba peoples turn raffia palm fibre into embroidered "velvet" and patchwork skirts many metres long. Here is how it is made and what it meant.
The Agadez cross is the best-known of the Tuareg's silver pendants, each named after a town or oasis in the Sahara. Here is what they are, who makes them, and what they mean.
Its tiny geometric prints, crisp feel and distinctive smell are known across South Africa. Here is how shweshwe travelled from European print works to Xhosa wedding dresses.
In 1960s Dar es Salaam, a self-taught painter used bicycle enamel on squares of board to create a whole school of East African art. Here is the story of Tingatinga.
Among the Zulu, a beaded panel could tell a young man exactly how a woman felt about him. Here is how colour, pattern and craft became a language.
In Brazzaville and Kinshasa, the sapeurs turn immaculate suits and polished shoes into an art form and a philosophy. Here is the story of La Sape.
The bold geometric murals of South Africa's Ndebele women began on homestead walls and ended up on a BMW. Here is the story, and the woman who carried it worldwide.
In Zanzibar and Lamu, a house's front door was its proudest possession. Here is how to read the carved doors of East Africa's Swahili coast.
Mali's mud cloth is painted with fermented river mud and leaves. Long before it reached fashion runways, it protected hunters and new mothers.
Kente is more than a bright fabric. Every strip, colour and pattern carries a name and a message, woven by Asante and Ewe hands for centuries.
