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Aïda Muluneh, The 99 Series (2014)

April 22, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

photo-of-selam-painted-white-face-painted-red-hands-around-neck

“…I painted her body white because for me, living in this city we call Addis Ababa, we don’t need to fantasize about going to the Inferno—I have seen and experienced enough things to really make me question humanity. I have realized that in order to get ahead here, many people wear masks in order to protect their future. But while doing this, the reality is that I have seen the various atrocities and the great lengths that many will go to in order to maintain their success. So with that in mind, for me the red hands symbolize the guilt associated with the thirst for upward mobility. The cloth wrapped around Salem’s body is specifically from the southern region of Ethiopia, which has endured several centuries of oppression, slavery, and so forth. For the background color, I chose the off-grey because it reminds me of dirty snow; this reminds me of my childhood growing up in Canada, in the midst of the bitter cold, and also the challenges that I faced being an African immigrant in an all-white community.”

Retrieved from The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

For more information on The 99 Series, visit Muluneh’s website here.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: Addis Ababa, Africa, Art Books, Canada, Ethiopia, Guilt, Immigration, Inferno, Models, Oppression, Photography, Slavery

Dante 700 Mural and Art Exhibit in Addis Abeba (2021)

November 19, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

dante-tribute-mural-in-addis-ababa-ethiopia

“The mural occupies an area of over 170 square meters and is divided into three connected sections in which Italian and Ethiopian artists interpret, in a modern key, the Supreme Poet and his life with the works Dante The Ethiopian (group ‘Addis Street Art’), The Divine Technic (Nicola Varesco), and Inside (Van Orton Design – Marco and Stefano Schiavon).

[. . .]

“The project, promoted with the patronage and support of the National Committee for the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death, is the result of the work of numerous illustrators, street artists, graphic designers, comic and graphic novel authors, very different from each other in terms of style (which ranges from tempera painting and geometric design to the use of 3D software), and in the approach to the reinterpretation of Dante’s iconography, but all of great impact.” [. . .]    —Italiana

Along with Dante’s 700th anniversary, this event commemorates the XXI week of the Italian Language in the world. Learn more through the Italian Cultural Institute of Addis Abeba, linked here.

Learn more about the exhibit here.

Categories: Places, Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2021, 700th anniversary, Addis Ababa, Africa, Art, Dante Portraits, Ethiopia, Exhibits, Languages, Multimedia, Murals, Virtual Reality, Visual Arts

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Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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