🇪🇹EthiopiaEast Africa
Eyob Kitaba's "Beneath the Roof" exhibition archives a changing Addis Ababa
via The Reporter Ethiopia11 min read
Artist Eyob Kitaba's latest exhibition, "Beneath the Roof," opened on March 26, 2026, at the Gebre Kristos Desta Center, featuring over 70 works that explore the transformation of Addis Ababa. Born and raised in the city's Merkato district, Kitaba's art bridges generations by translating memories of urban life into visual forms. His work, which includes paintings, sculptures, photography, sound, and installations, often incorporates reclaimed materials like corrugated iron, architectural fragments, and everyday objects from across the city. These elements are reconfigured into layered compositions that engage with themes of memory, displacement, and urban change. Kitaba, a lecturer at the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design, aims to convey a sense of unease about the rapid pace of change in Addis Ababa, where he observes a "turbulence of destruction and rebirth." The exhibition reflects various periods of urban development and displacement, including relocations due to corridor development projects. Curator Jermay Michael Gabriel notes that Kitaba's use of kornis, a traditional ceiling framework, helps organize and make visible the city's material memory. The exhibition resonates with visitors like Meron Getu, a student who found personal reflection in the art's portrayal of a city in flux. Kitaba hopes to extend the work's life beyond the gallery, integrating it into education to encourage emerging artists to draw inspiration from their immediate environments.
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This summary was AI-generated from a story originally published by The Reporter Ethiopia.
Must ReadThe Ethiopian Civil Society Organizations Coalition for Election CECOE reported that the voter registration process for the country’s seventh general election was marked by repeated digital system failures, limited accessibility for people with disabilities, and security incidents. These incidents included killings, abductions, and intimidation targeting election officials. CECOE, accredited by the National Election Board of Ethiopia NEBE, deployed 522 long-term observers to nearly 4,400 voter registration centers across all regional states and city administrations, excluding Tigray. The coalition noted that while 97 percent of registration centers were in legally authorized sites, some operated from prohibited locations such as military camps, police facilities, religious institutions, health centers, bars, hotels, political party offices, and private residences. Interruptions affected a third of manual registration centers and over a quarter of digital centers. Accessibility was a major concern, with only 12 percent of manual and 23 percent of tablet-based stations independently accessible to people with disabilities. Similarly, only 11 percent of manual and 20 percent of digital centers were accessible to the elderly, pregnant women, and parents with infants. However, about 90 percent of both manual and tablet-based stations were considered reasonably accessible and secure for women. The report documented one killing of an election official, two attempted killings, seven a
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Must ReadDespite being educated, networked, and aware of grievances, Tigrayan youth and pro-reform elites have struggled to achieve a non-violent transition away from the dominance of TPLF hardliners. This failure is attributed to historical legacies, coercive control, elite fragmentation, war fatigue, external interventions, and survival calculations. The article outlines five interacting factors: historical contingency shaping political identity, the coercive capture of security institutions by hardliners, elite fragmentation co-opting youth energy, war fatigue leading to a preference for stability, and external actors reshaping opportunity structures. A roadmap for non-violent transformation proposes four measures: a verifiable security deconcentration process, inclusive political engineering beyond personality politics, economic stabilization and civic reintegration, and a strategic civic coalition and communication plan. Potential positive scenarios include a managed stalemate evolving into gradual political opening, or a tipping point from successful decentralization of coercive structures. Conversely, negative scenarios include hardliner consolidation, intra-Tigrayan civil war, radicalization of disempowered youth, regional destabilization, and permanent political fragmentation. The article concludes that rekindling confidence among Tigrayan youth and elites requires verifiable, staged changes that reduce existential risks, supported by impartial external facilitation, calibrat