popupaddis

[popupaddis]

This summer Pop Up Addis was featured in a short interview held between Sarah Wessler of Sattelite Magazine and Zach Abubeker. It comprises the popup show, and the general art practices happening in Addis Ababa.

[popupaddis]

  A new energetic curator-duo has popped up in Addis Ababa. Photographer Zacharias Elias Abubeker and film-producer Sara Eklund recently organized the first ever pop up exhibition in the Ethio...

Earlier this summer Karen Obling did a short interview about the show and posted on her blog www.addisrumble.com

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Yoseph Ammanuel

© Yoseph Ammanuel, 2013

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Yordanos Berhe

My work explores the people and places that I encounter daily. I use the camera to show my environment from a personal perspective and explore the light effects, colors and scale shifts that occur naturally, but are enhanced or changed by the camera's lens. My heritage and family are an important part of my life in Chicago, I immigrated to the United States in 2007. I work hard to go to school and make myself a new future, but I feel that it is important to remember where I come from and how I got here. I was born in Eritrea Tokombiya, and grew up in Ethiopia Tigray. Even though Eritrea and Ethiopia see each other as different countries and different people, for me we are all the same. I call myself Habesha which means Eritrean and Ethiopian. I love my country, Eritrea and Ethiopia.

  © Yordanos Berhe, 2013

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Yonas Hailu

For me Art is a sheared Living experience by the Artist’s way of seeing things with the “artiste’s eye” every artists has it’s story to make each has it’s own point of view to make and each has its own style to show something significant to the society. That’s why art has the ability to express such a spiritual quality of a society like religion ,culture way of life etc.. moreover it can even depict passionate personal feelings like love, anger ,happiness ,grave hope hopelessness etc… that we all sheared when we live To in this world “Human society continuously develops through constant interaction and communication among its members (people). Indeed, humans have different ways, means, media, and form through which they can express themselves and extend their message to other people in the society. Art is an example of this medium of communication, which “involves skill and creative imagination in a musical, literary, visual, or performance context”. It is more than a medium of communication, since it goes beyond the traditional forms of verbal communication it is also one way of “seeing” and interpreting the social reality of the creator or artist, where people can get a glimpse of what and how the artist depicts his/her reality (relationship between the self and society).”

© Yonas Hailu, 2013

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Wanja Kimani

Self Portrait (2013)

    The piece is an exploration of the myths that are perpetuated by various mediums including the media, tradition and culture. If something is said enough times, we may begin to believe it. Children often believe in fairy tales in a similar way to how we are at times led by the media, tradition and culture in later years.

  Self Portrait is presented as a form of fairy tale that follows the simplistic story of a young girl who has migrated and her process of assimilating into the new environment and new found beliefs. Children are better at adapting to new places, often adjusting quicker and accepting new customs easier than adults. They are yet to discover the burden that memory of the previous place can sometimes bring. They are yet to learn and understand the phrases ‘it was’, ‘I was’, ‘I did’, I loved’.

© Wanja Kimani, 2013

[popupaddis]

METAL MACHINE MERKATO • Jacob Kirkegaard in Addis 

  © Vincent Moon, 2013

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Solomon Tsegaye

The title of the work is ‘Flying Angel’,it is a mixed media sculpture portraying a female figure which symbolizes Ethiopia( I used  the colors of the national flag.) As you see the figure, it looks vibrating and moving but it also seems firmly rooted to the pedestal and couldn’t move at all,this is what I feel about where i am in,a paradox of dynamic and static,but regardless of this it shows the effort Ethiopia is undertaking for its Renaissance.

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Shlomo Godder

  Lottery Boy

  This photograph is of Eshitu who is a lead of a film I just shot. He is a lottery boy from Gojjam. The photo was taken in Mesalemia, where he works.

  © Shlomo Godder, 2013

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Sarah Noa Bozenhardt

Still from Affectionate Care

  See the full film here: https://vimeo.com/68556378

Affectionate Care

Tselote, an Ethiopian woman in her thirties, lives abroad, far from home. She has adapted to this new and foreign environment and finds herself in a comfortable home. However, a cat and plants are her only companions in this space. Photographs speak of the family far away.

Tselote struggles with her maternal wish to carry a child and with the pressure that is sent along from the Horn of Africa, two variables that seem to go hand in hand. This short film captures an intimate portrait of Tselote’s every day, but it speaks of the struggles that can arise living abroad: Cultural pressure and personal pain are captured in a calm and nurturing environment.

  © Sarah Noa Bozenhardt, 2013

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Samuel Taye

School girl walking by the Wello Sefer / Bole construction inter-pass

  © Samuel Taye, 2013 

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Salima Pujani

  Photograph: We are Still Here/Tej Bet

  In the current contemporary art environment in Addis Ababa, there has been a strong focus on the city's deconstruction and construction, demolition and rebuilding, what is lost or what no longer exists. I feel there is a gap in documenting what is still here, while it is still here.  "We are Still Here" started with the intention of questioning what modernization and gentrification do to social connections between people. I chose to focus on Ginfle in Arrat Kilo, an area set for destruction in the near future, but also an area to which I have a strong attachment to, my current neighborhood.  My intention is to show you how things are the way they are now before they change. The audio and photographic slideshow combines excerpts from interviews around Ginfle with different merchants and residents as well as sounds heard while walking in the area. The music in the background is inspired by traditional "Tizita" chords, symbolizing the feeling of nostalgia present in the neighborhood, nostalgia for a past that will soon be the present.

  © Salima Pujani, 2013

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Rym Beydoun

© Rym Beydoun, 2013

[popupaddis]

Eucalyptus

  © Rike Horb, 2013 

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Raul Walch

The Impossible Sphere

The work Impossible Sphere is a metal structure that was freely moving through Addis Abeba installed on the back of a donkey.

© Raul Walch, 2013

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Phil Hodgson

 “Still Life with Construction” (2012)

[popupaddis]

Artist Profile : Paul Harrison

  The Promised Land 1 & 2, are a visual interpretation of Ethiopia as the promised Land, the motherland, the spiritual home of all black people which is heavily influenced by the movement of Rastafarianism. Well, for me this strong unifying connection that Rastafarians have with the country of Ethiopia and Africa in general is really inspiring because it serves as a focal point to view Africa in a different way. Perhaps with a more tribal perspective that incorporates this notion that Africa is the oldest continent and carries an ancient mysticism; it was this rather utopian sense of the unknown that I associated with the word and country Ethiopia. So these images contain digital representations of both Damian Marley and Emperor Hail Selassie 1 (Tafari Makonnen Woldemikael) next to patterns and tribal associations. Each image has been made through a process of digital collage combined with hand drawn elements and explores my interest in our fluctuating understanding of digital images and representations. An interest that stems from working in digital animation which has provided me with new ways to explore material qualities of existing imagery. Because the main focus of my work is expanding on the meanings of the word animation, movement is a really important part of this. So the various motions involved in the digital environment that these images come from really communicates or allows for a sense of this mysticism and lack of material ownership over Ethiopia.          

   © Paul Harrison, 2013