This body of work contains old celluloid photographs and portraits taken by a Westerners. I worked mostly with images of the indigenous people to create a photo collage were I appropriate and elevate them through a physical act of colorizing with hand and bodily engagement, exploring the tactile potential of photography, also intend to bring the past into the present to open important dialogue I enlarge the scale of the images and disrupt the portrait into a more subjective black face and colorize them to add a kind of haunting quality since the faces are no longer there. to tell a collective story than an individual and become more mysterious and empowered. Throughout each successive body of work, I create a traces of the handmade colorizing and layering to add explicit form of texture, dimension, and ultimately additional meaning to the visuals. While the first pursuit is predominantly experimental and process driven, there is also a perpetual analytical inquiry about my own identity and personal heritage, questioning history.
Acquired directly from the artist

September 5, 2020

Art as depository of collective history | The Reporter Ethiopia | Hiwot Abebe

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