ART-RWANDA: Young Returnees Revive Art Scene

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jean Baptiste Kayigamba

KIGALI, May 19 1998 (IPS) - One of the features of post-genocide Rwanda, struggling to return to normal after the horrors of civil war, has been the return of artists from neighbouring countries to bring about a revival in this nation’s culture.

One name, Gaston Yasasa, has emerged at the top of this revival. He was born 27 years ago on the outskirts of the Burundi capital, Bujumbura, to where the first group of Rwandan Tutsi refugees fled in 1959.

Like Mozart, Yasasa made his first debut as a musician at the age of five – “even before knowing I was doing it” – as a chorus- boy. “I was often battered by my aunt who did not like me to sing in the chuch choir,” Yasasa told IPS.

Yasasa, who was taken in by his aunt after losing his parents at an early age, says he was prevented from participating in contests, something which always made him unhappy.

“I felt chained, imprisoned. I felt something was dying in me,” he recalled.

After years of struggling for freedom and self-expression, Yasasa landed at Gitega School of Arts, in the south of Bujumbura, where he embraced new notions about plastic art. His dedication and hard work helped the school – at the time headed by a Belgian clergyman – win awards in several art competitions held across the tiny Central African nation.

“I was not aware that my talent was being exploited. Some of my works were picked up by visitors from Holland and Belgium. To me, the exhibitions were just part of my school work,” Yasasa said.

When Yasasa returned to Rwanda, like most exiles, after the 1994 genocide – in which up to one million people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were slaughtered – he found a devastated country, devoured by hate, with thousands of widows and orphans. Many of the country’s artists were among those who died in the genocide.

The horrors that shook Rwanda inspired the young Yasasa to set up “Magic Studio” – as he calls it – in Kimihurura, a suburb in Kigali.

“My favourite themes are the issues related to genocide, nature, and the family,” said Yasasa. He signs his paintings “Omega Yasasa” because “I was the last born in my family, and I was always last on the alphabetical order at school.”

In 1995, Yasasa began teaming up with well-known Rwandan artists to organise exhibitions around the country, sometimes with the sponsorship of international agencies like the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the French Cultural Centre in Kigali and the Martin Luther King Foundation in Atlanta, USA.

“I later started staging my own exhibitions and fought hard to awaken and urge Rwandans to appreciate the work of local artists,” Yasasa explained.

His relentless campaign, as well as his hard work, earned him an accolade from a top Rwandan government official who signed in a visitor’s book kept by Yasasa a message that the young artist still cherishes.

“The work by Gaston Yasasa is excellent. But it is regrettable that our people lack education to appreciate art. Works like these should earn respect to their authors who must be supported,” wrote the official.

Unfortunately, Rwandan artists complain that government assistance is insufficient to market the work of Rwandan artists overseas.

“Each year, UNESCO (the U.N.Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) offers scholarships to art students, but the ministries concerned are either ignorant or not interested,” complained Yasasa.

Despite his government’s indifference, Yasasa is lucky. In August 1997, he travelled to France and visited the Louvre. “I remember standing in front of one of Van Gogh’s masterpieces and bursting into tears, I was so moved,” he said

Yasasa is now canvassing for funding to attend the Dakar Biennial Arts Festival, scheduled for May-June 1998, in Senegal.

Apart from plastic art, Yasasa also is a story-teller. He recently won the “Prix Francophonie,” a three-hour essay writing contest for Francophone countries.

At a recent exhibition at the French Cultural Center here, Yasasa also introduced his collection of collages – pieces of papers, cut in different sizes,mixed with painting to create a world full of new messages, meanings and interpretations. More than 30 works depicting the collage technique were exhibited at the centre for about one month.