Yero Adugna Eticha
BLACK IN BERLIN
f³ – freiraum für fotografie, Berlin
February 23 – March 10, 2024
AYENACHEW SARAH KLAMANDT & JIREGNA TADESE
© Yero Adugna Eticha
VERTEL JACKSON
© Yero Adugna Eticha
ARSENE TSOKENG
© Yero Adugna Eticha
HANNAH MARC
© Yero Adugna Eticha
For photographer Yero Adugna Eticha, it all began with the protests against the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement that grew out of them in 2020. People around the world showed solidarity and demonstrated against racism and discrimination. Yero Adugna Eticha decided to take action himself. On the streets of Berlin, he distributed flyers to Black people asking them to have their picture taken with him. Over the years, he took 500 portraits of Afro-Black Germans and the diaspora in Berlin. During the encounters, he learned everyday and moving details from their lives, which he recorded. Yero Adugna Eticha works transdisciplinary on the levels of image and sound. BLACK IN BERLIN is a unique archive that provides an insight into the multifaceted realities of Black people's lives in a white majority society.
At the center of the portrait work is Yero Adugna Eticha’s examination of the culture and history of colonialism.
"Who we are: An integral part of this city, people of different professions and backgrounds, different dreams, embodiments of Black identity. I dream of a Berlin in which the facet of every Black face is celebrated." – Yero Adugna Eticha
On the occasion of Black History Month, f³ – freiraum für fotografie presents BLACK IN BERLIN, the first solo exhibition by the Ethiopian-born Yero Adugna Eticha, who lives and works as a photographer in Berlin. At the same time, the photo book BLACK IN BERLIN is published by Distanz Verlag.
BLACK IN BERLIN
Edited by Matthias Kliefoth.
German/English, 2024, 152 pages,
120 b/w illustrations, hardcover 24 x 29 cm
Distanz Verlag, 1924
YERO ADUGNA ETICHA is a photographer from Oromia/Ethiopia who lives in Berlin and dedicates his work to the stories, perspectives and visions of Afro- and Black Germans. Since graduating from the Ostkreuz School of Photography, he has worked on various photography projects, including "Atmospheres in the Urban Anthropocene" (2019) as well as "The Ethiopian Project" (2020) and "Black in Berlin Project". His work was part of the Boros Foundation group exhibition in the "Studio Berlin" (Berghain). Yero Adugna Eticha teaches at the Ale School of Fine Arts Addis Ababa and has been a member of the BLACK DADS GERMANY initiative since 2021.
The exhibition was curated by Miriam Zlobinski.
Upcoming exhibition at f³ – freiraum für fotografie, Berlin : A DAY OFF. An Exhibition of the F.C. Gundlach Foundation, March 15 – June 2, 2024
f³ – freiraum für fotografie
Waldemarstraße 17 | 10179 Berlin
