AIDA MULUNEH THE WORLD IS 9 The World is 9
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The World is 9
AIDA MULUNEH THE WORLD IS 9
The World is 9
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INDEX The World is 9 by Aida Muluneh
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A Stronger Light by Lemn Sissay
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The World is 9 8-65 The 99 Series 66-69 The Wolf You Feed 70-74
COVER IMAGE Tizita/Nostalgia, 2016, Edition of 5, 80 x 80cm
Design and layout - Amé Snyman Technical collaboration - Ricardo Fornoni Biographical text and edits - Jessie Cohen Printed and bound by One Thread Advertising, Johannesburg and MagCloud, New York All images copyright © the artist
David Krut Projects 142 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa info-jhb@davidkrut.com l t. +27(0)11 447 0627 Montebello Design Centre, 31 Newlands Avenue, Newlands, Cape town, 7001 dkct@davidkrut.com l t. +27 (0)21 685 0676 526 W. 26th Street, Suite 816, New York, 10001, USA info@davidkrut.com l t. +1 (212) 255 3094 www.davidkrut.com
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The world is 9 by Aida Muluneh Living in Addis Ababa for the past nine years has been a lesson; a lesson in humility, and a lesson in what it means to return to a land that was foreign to me. Over the past nine years, an expression of my grandmother has stuck in my mind – she would say, “The world is 9, it is never complete and it’s never perfect.” I thought it was interesting, but it wasn’t until much later as an adult that her voice echoed in my thoughts of whether we can live in this world with full contentment. In this world, we are idealists seeking perfection but living in a reality which does not afford us that balance. Life is unpredictable and imperfect – we must conquer these challenges with strength and endurance because the world within us and the world knocking on our door, bears the unknown future. Regardless, through these experiences, I was inspired to create 28 new pieces of work. Each image is an exploration of questions about life, love, and history. I am not seeking answers but asking provocative questions about the life that we live – as people, as nations, as beings. I have chosen to continue working on body painting, which is inspired by traditional body art from across Africa. Each work is a reflection of conscious and sub-conscious manifestations of time and space.
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a stronger light by Lemn Sissay Dark. Light. Dark. Light. In darkness I ask, where is the light? In light I ask, why was it dark? The irresistible urge to question is the artist’s way. My first name, Lemn, means “why” in my mother’s tongue. There is great beauty in the world, but if the world were without questions there would be no beauty. If people were perfect there would be no need for personality or for God. Without the grit, no pearl. Imperfection is the grit of beauty. Like a photographer looking back at the shots she missed, Aida and I (like many returnees) were separated from our homeland in our youth. We looked back. In the separation we experienced an unstoppable search for light. In Aida’s case, she looked back to the Ethiopia remembered in her first five years. In my case, I looked back to the first few months of my life in my Ethiopian mother’s arms.
Dark. Light. Dark. Light. In darkness I ask, where is the light? In light I ask, why was it dark? This looking back took on real meaning against our diminished status in Europe and Canada. It became concrete. Our memories became more real. I am from somewhere with more integrity. It became solid somewhere I am loved – somewhere with humanity and history.
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This is the hallucination in the desert of the diaspora. It drives some people crazy. I’ll never forget the black man rocking backward and forward in the city. He was Jamaican. “I love classical music. I love classical music. I love classical music,” he repeated. He was trying to throw off the stereotype and cling onto what his heart loves amongst the pressure to be something, to be someone. Finally, we return. And we realize that returning is not easy. We had imagined a world that wasn’t there. We realize that all people are returning from one place to another. Many of us with false expectations. Life is a constant process of separating and coming together. But, as we realized that our dream was not the reality we had identified the grit. The world is nine and not a perfect ten. We shed as much as we grow. We lose as much as we gain. We who are insatiable about knowing must be at peace with not knowing and allow the colour, texture, sound and smells to fill us and tell us their own story. Our homelands are inside of us and when we return a more truthful experience merges. There Aida is – floating through the city, the country with lense in hand. She sees our culture rich in contradictions. Contradictions rich in culture. And now the beauty, the true beauty shines through. Aida has photographed me many times over the years. I feel lucky. She takes colour. She takes light from the edge of shadows. Addis Ababa, January 2016
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Conversation, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Dinknesh Part One, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Dinknesh Part Two, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Dinknesh Part Three, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Age of Anxiety, 2015 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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The More Loving One Part One, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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The More Loving One Part Two, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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For All They Care, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Fragments, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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All in One, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Fragments Part Two, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Postcards from Asmara, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Dreams and Delusions Part Two, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Dust on a Butterly’s Wings, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Dust on a Butterly’s Wings Part Two, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Memory of Libya, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Local Understanding, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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The Departure, 2016, Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Rules of Engagement, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Romance is Dead, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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The Morning Bride, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Strength in Honor, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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City Life, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Sai Mado / The Distant Gaze, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Things Fall Apart, 2015 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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For Those Who Ride the Wind, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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Putting it Together, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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The Outsider Inside, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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The Past, the Present and the Future, 2016 Archival digital photograph Edition of 7, 80 x 80cm
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the 99 series Inferno is made of history, not only of a country but of self, of exile, of bloodshed, of loss of mourning, of bitterness, of broken hearts and broken wings. The inferno is not down below; it is here, ever-present, next to us, in our memories and in our minds. It is made of delusions, of prostration, of hiding behind masks to validate our existance and our hidden agenda’s; it’s a mask we wear to fool ourselves and others in an attempt to get ahead, yet we are void in our survival. We live in the gray existence, uncomfortable like the dirty snow of western winters or like the polluted skyline of what we call Ethiopian Modernity. Pulled between the past, the present and the future, we wrap ourselves with forgotten heritage and dream of looking towards the future, but we are stuck looking into the past. For eternity we are toiling with rituals and ceremony, yet our past deeds are marked by unhealing wounds, the blood of false victory stiched by the threads of nostalgia. A story we each carry, of loss, of oppressors, of victims, of disconnection, of belonging, of longing you see paradise in the dark abyss of eternity.
The 99 Series Part One, 2015 The 99 Series Part Two, 2015 The 99 Series Part Three, 2015 The 99 Series Part Four, 2015
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The 99 Series Part Five, 2015 The 99 Series Part Six, 2015 OPPOSITE The 99 Series Part Seven, 2015 Editions of 5, 80 x 80cm Edtions of 3, 100 x 100cm
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THE WOLF YOU FEED The Wolf You Feed collection is a reflection on the personal and outer battles that people face. The battle between good and evil, between the path we choose and the one that is chosen for us. In our busy day of living this life, we often forget that the most basic elements of our lives are based on the choices that we make and how these choices have an impact on our families, communities and society. Many of the themes in this body of work relate to human nature and interaction. The problems of this world are a manifestation of the deterioration of our societies and the obsession of our own mortality. Some of us believe in God, some of us believe in spirituality, some in money and others in fame and so forth. Does anyone dream of a better world or have we grown comfortable in accepting the nightmare as a reality? We have become like by standards of an accident, watching with passivity for our own self-satisfaction, yet in the distance the world burns. Which is the wolf you are feeding?
Editions of 5, 80 x 80cm Edtions of 3, 100 x 100cm
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Sloth, 2015 The Sacrifice, 2015 LibertĂŠ / Freedom, 2015
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An Idle Mind, 2015 Song of David, 2015 Revenge, 2015
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The Wolf You Feed Part One, 2015 The Wolf You Feed Part Two, 2015 The Wolf You Feed Part Three, 2015
Illustrated verso Conquest, 2015
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“I can’t help but be drawn to these battles that we encounter within ourselves because I believe that the moral decay we face in this generation can only lead to our own extinction” Born in Ethiopia in 1974, Aida Muluneh has since lived around the world – from Yemen to the United Kingdom to Cyprus, Canada and the United States. In 2000, she graduated with a degree in Film from Howard University in Washington D.C., then she worked as a photojournalist at the Washington Post. For Muluneh, “the problems of this world are a manifestation of the deterioration of our societies and the obsession of our own mortality. Some of us believe in God, some of us believe in spirituality, some of us believe in money, some of us believe in fame and so forth.” She prompts viewers to ask difficult questions about human existence and to break a pattern of passivity. Through her work she asks, “does anyone even dream of a better world or have we grown comfortable in accepting the nightmare as a reality?” She is unafraid to criticize inaction towards social inequality, using the body to conjure the metaphor of an internal moral split and ask “which wolf are we feeding?” Her photographs were exhbited in the ikauru exhibition at UNISA, Pretoria, and in FANTASTIC at the Michaelis Art Gallery in Cape Town and she the visited the 2015 Joburg Art Fair. Muluneh is the 2007 recipient of the European Union Prize in the Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie, in Bamako, Mali, as well as the 2010 winner of the CRAF International Award of Photography in Spilimbergo, Italy. Her work can be found in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, the Museum of Biblical Art and Hood Museum in the United States, as well as the Sindika Dokolo Foundation in Berlin. Her book, published by Africalia in Brussels is titled “Ethiopia: Past/Forward”. It reflects her vision on reconnecting to Ethiopia through memory and nostalgia. Muluneh is the founder and director of the first international photography festival in Ethiopia, the Addis Foto Fest, as well as Fana Wogi a yearly open call supporting contemporary artists in Ethiopia. Aida continues to curate and develop cultural projects with local and international institutions through her company DESTA (Developing and Educating Society Through Art) For Africa Creative Consulting PLC (DFA) in Addis Ababa.
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