Culturing: Monday Round Up
This week’s Monday Round Up offers an amuse bouche from Addis’s buffet of creative entertainment activities. In particular, I saw the "Capture Addis" exhibit on display at City Hall, Alliance Ethio-Francaise's "On the Grind" standing gallery exhibit (in conjunction with their larger showcase), and the spoken-word slam named “Poetic Saturday” at Fendika Cultural Center. All three deserve attention, even if just in the past tense. In addition, my street explorations in between "Capture Addis" and "On the Grind" lent some dynamism to my usual paths around Addis. Even when I wandered down a wrong alley or two.
I arrived at Addis Ababa's Mazegaja Bet (let's just say City Hall) in the mid-morning last Friday. It was there that a street photography exhibit put together by a competitive festival called "Capture Addis" was installed to feature the work of a broad cross-section of local shooters. The show opened on October 26th, with the intended duration of just one week. I'm not sure if it’s been taken down yet. Ethiopia time (start late then linger) may allow it to stay up awhile longer. I recommend that everyone with the time and inclination to seek out worthwhile street art to head up there if they still can. Thankfully, almost every featured photographer has an Instagram presence. I followed my favorites and they mostly followed back. Modern viewing rolls like that.
Beyond the show, City Hall was a trip. And one worth taking. The security outside requires a standard issue shakedown. Not at all corrupt - just bring an ID and don't balk at giving it up for a temporary badge. Once inside, you're surrounded by the sort of “please ignore the mess” renovation that feels so authentically and currently Addis. City Hall’s into heavy demolition days right now - desks getting hauled outside, huge piles of cement mix piled everywhere, dust flying and walls coming down. My favorite evidence that something big’s afoot was the new marble announcement of the project being "Starded" in October. We all notice examples of mildly-garbled or misspelled English that cause chuckles. I mention this instance, however, to appreciate the pile of destroyed marble lying next to the one on the wall. Which begs the question, “how off is too off for a whole friggin’ marble slab to be busted up and taken down?” You’d think the replacement would’ve been double and triple-checked. Unless it was so completely wrong that any ol’ bad English would be good enough in comparison. I'd love to put it back together like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Who’s with me?
A host of other City Hall sights kept my gaze from lingering there. Case in point - the vast open courtyard had many dozen if not a few hundred bikes lined up in various states of dusty, dissembled confusion. As best I could tell, they were being repaired. To be loaners maybe? I'll be on the hopeful lookout for a fleet of black-framed, one-speed cruisers scattered around Addis. Holler back if you see them before me.
After the pleasures of City Hall, I made my way toward Alliance Ethio-Francaise’s (the Ethiopian-French institute) gorgeous sanctuary of a campus. The promotion of their street art and skate culture "On the Grind" event crossed my radar plenty over the past few weeks. I may head back there for some music or a documentary on Ethiopian skaters this week. Just catching the art exhibit was enough to make me appreciate the international allure of street wear and graffiti-adjacent design. I'm not at all surprised to offer the trite observation that there are many clever and talented artists working in places like Addis and Hawassa (a skate crew from there is also featured in the "On the Grind" exhibit) and beyond. Zelalem Merga’s found art collages, in particular, are stunning.
In between those shows, there's just so much life to see on the actual streets. The well-worn, lovable Tomoca coffee cafe on Wawel St. feels like an especially rare successful blend of Piassa regulars and informed-enough visitors. Another visual draw for me was the massive fruit market a few blocks away that my driver suggested would be a great location for future photo shoots. What caught my eye most was the piles of broken habhab (watermelon) rinds and muz (banana) peels heaped in the gutters. There’s also a serious concentration of appliance stores and generator dealers around the Piassa. It ain’t pretty there. But there’s a whole lot of functional utility in all directions.
In neighborhoods like the Piassa, I lapse into my emotionless stare. I also prepped my new reply for the truly hard-luck cases looking for a handout. "Igzer yist'ilin" - meaning something close to "it is in God's hands." Total karmic backdoor cop out, I realize. But it's better than offering nothing at all, right? I inevitably got turned around as I tried to soak up the scenes all around. At one point, I headed down what I thought would be a shortcut. My internal radar flashed brightly as the alley narrowed and a handful of men took notice of my Hawaiian shirt and rising dry season sunburn. I turned tail and double-timed it down another alley that opened up quickly. I tried to reorient myself with an Amharic catch all phrase. No problem. "Cigir yilim,” I said to no one other than myself.
My next day of "culturing" (or exploring Addis's in terms of art and entertainment) took me for the first time to Fendika Cultural Center in Kazanchis. Fendika is well known here for their Ethio-jazz nights and epic traditional musical jam sessions. What they program there has a distinctive reputation that even new Addis initiates like myself know we should pay attention. My Fendika introduction, however, was for their once a month "Poetic Saturday" slam poetry open mike. A local new friend (Seife Tamam) of a Seattle friend of Sarah's suggested this event. Seife is a regular, and actually won a special local slam competition just two weeks ago. The roster at Fendika was deep (37 performers signed up) and they ran the gamut from OK to damn well amazing. For a hot minute and at Seife's insistence, I thought about signing up. Which I will do. Soon. Stay tuned for when that comes to pass.
There's more to say about the work I saw there. Performers do so in many languages and I suspect that almost everyone understands English. But the Ethiopians performing in languages I couldn't understand were the most powerful to watch. Some of them were greeted with cheers and claps and snaps, as is the subtle way to show prior knowledge and respect. Almost everyone is half my age. A few understated readers got up and just burned a hole through us all, they were so hot and piercingly real. Surprises vaulted throughout the roster I saw. I had to leave early, in part because they very much started on Ethiopia time, as in 30 minutes late. One of the hosts…an American from Denver named Chris Turnbull-Grimes who is a civil engineer here and has been part of it from the beginning 3.5 years ago...told me that this was the longest list of performers they've ever had sign up). Slam is quite impressively alive and well here in Addis.
What follows are some of the images from these latest culturing loops around Addis. There’s certainly more where this and so much else comes from. If I can manage to take in one or two of these explorations every week, I'll set a good pace. In no small part what I’m looking for in Addis and beyond this year pairs these samplings with a desire to push my artistic limits in front of crowds like the one at Fendika’s Poetic Saturdays. I’m not saying I’ve got the guts to get up there repeatedly. I just need to test my limits. Even with a few wrong turns, every once in a while. Radar on. Here we go. Ciao.
