Returning to Addis!

So, in September I hope to return to Addis Ababa after nearly 18 months! This time I plan to stay in Ethiopia's capital for most of the school year (through June/July 2014) conducting research for my doctoral dissertation. This will involve research in archives, libraries and museums, as well as conducting a considerable numbers of interviews with artists and creative professionals.  As many of you know, my dissertation is focused on the production and consumption of art during Ethiopia's "socialist" period, following its revolution in 1974, a topic that I have been working on since completing my MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2009. This is a very painful period in Ethiopian history, one that was marked with considerable violence especially in the city of Addis. It was also one of the last gasps of the Cold War on African soil, with the Soviet Union and its allies facing off against the United States, and 'cultural advisors' from across the Communist world flooding the city; Ethiopia became the last "People's Democratic Republic" to be founded before the fall of the Berlin Wall. My dissertation examines the role that artists played in the period, their coerced production of visual propaganda, their subtle modes of resistance and the spaces they negotiated to produce in an environment of oppression.

This blog is entitled "Temari Negn / ተማሪ: ነኝ::" This translates from Amharic to "I am a student," and for the next year I am dedicated to learning as much as I can about this important moment in African history. I intend to use this site as a way of recording the progress of my research and my experiences of life as a research student in Addis. I hope to return to the States with both enough material to write my thesis, and a considerably better grasp of Amharic!

Please do stay in touch and should you be interested in visiting me in beautiful Ethiopia over the next few months, you would be more than welcome!

National Museum of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa