The Exponent

Ethiopian artist explores hope through a camera lens

February 28, 2018

The solemn-eyed models and rich blues, yellows and reds of Aida Muluneh’s photos pop out of the brick walls of the Fountain Gallery, sandwiched in the historic 141-year-old Perrin Building in downtown Lafayette.

The exhibit opened on Monday and will feature a combination of two of Muluneh’s exhibits, “Memory of Hope” and “World is 9,” until March 31.

Muluneh has explored both fine art and commercial photography, and also worked as a photojournalist for the Washington Post. This spring, she will be one of the artists featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s “Being: New Photography 2018” exhibit.

Fountain Gallery coordinator Erika Kvam praised the intersection of Muluneh’s varying ventures in photography.

“She is firmly rooted in, for lack of a better word, commercial creativity in that she doesn’t just come from a fine-art side,” Kvam said. “But she’s incredibly learned and ... has done amazing work all over the world. We’re really quite lucky to have her.”

Muluneh is represented by the Jenkins Johnson Gallery in the U.S. and had work featured in countries as varied as Senegal, Germany and China.

In her home country of Ethiopia, Muluneh founded both a company and an art festival. In 2010, she established Desta for Africa Creative Consulting. According to her website, the company aims to elevate culture, image and media productions in Ethiopia. That same year, she launched the Addis Foto Fest, a biennial international photography festival and the first and only of its kind in East Africa.

Muluneh will come to campus on March 23 for her closing reception and to present a talk titled “Crossroads of Afro-futurism in Fine Art.”

Though Afrofuturism, which explores the intersection of African culture and technology, has been an important topic for years, Kvam said it has become even more relevant recently, especially due to the release of Marvel’s “Black Panther” movie and the questions it raises about repatriation and who can and should claim ownership of cultural artifacts. As Kvam pointed out, it isn’t the British Empire.

Kvam liked Muluneh’s work for its use of colors and composition.

“I love the colors, especially that blue. It’s almost like the Yves Klein blue … it was the first patented color and it’s this beautiful bright lapis color. But I just love the colors that she uses and the way that they almost, they almost look unreal they’re so bright and perfectly staged and they almost look like a collage rather than a photograph. And she works in beautiful symbolism.”

The Fountain Gallery can be found at 330 Main Street in downtown Lafayette, and is free and open to the public from 12-7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

PressPatrick PrivatMarch 17, 2021