Noorderlicht

Biography

Ethopia: Past/Forward (2008)

After Ethiopia was in the spotlight during the famine of the mid-1980s, the country has largely disappeared from the world stage, despite the fact that this region in the Horn of Africa, with its rich history, has both great problems and great potential. In Ethopia: Past/Forward  the young photographer Aïda Muluneh shows us diverse aspects of the land where she was born, from daily life as it plays out along the side of the road to the role of religion. People of various faiths – including Coptic Christians and Muslims –  live peaceably alongside one another in Ethiopia. That is the good news from a country where repression and poverty seriously restrict the opportunities for the population.

Aïda Muluneh (Ethiopia, 1974) left her homeland while a child, growing up in Yemen, England, Cyprus and Canada. Provoked by the distorted image that the world had of Ethiopia because of the famine, she decided to plunge into photography. She has published in The Washington Post, The New York Times and other newspapers, and cooperated in the exhibition Ethiopian Passages: Dialogues in the Diaspora. She won the European Union Prize during the Bamako festival, and is the founder of  D.E.S.T.A for Africa, a non-profit organisation that gives photographic training in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.