The Addis Foto Fest (AFF), which takes place every two years on the first week of December, opened in the Sheraton Addis, showcasing not just exhibitions, but portfolio reviews, conferences, film projections and film screenings as well.
The Biennial event’s 2014 edition was organised by Desta For Africa (DFA) Creative Consulting Plc, and showcased more than 10 curators and 95 artists from 32 countries, spanning across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.
The opening event, which was held at the Sheraton Addis, was attended by Tedros Adhanom, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Firmin Edouard Matoko, director of UNESCO in Addis Abeba.
This edition of the Addis Foto Fest featured 13 photographers from Ethiopia, who were participants in last year’s DFA Photography Workshop. The workshop entertained a number of collections whose content ranged as much as the photo locations did, according to Aida Muluneh, director of DFA and founder of AFF.
From Africa, the ‘Visions of Africa’ collection, a pallet of images that shows African history, its challenges, transformation and renaissance was featured. The event also featured ‘the Americas: United States and Latin America’, a contribution from the region’s artists exploring various segments of self-expression and daily life.
Some of the other collections, ‘Witness: images from the Middle East’, and ‘The visual migration and the Asia Collection’ were from regions that were not represented in previous editions of the AFF.
The special collection included ‘River Tales: Photographic Narratives along the River Nile’ and ‘Sudden Flowers’ collections, which are a response to the AIDS epidemic in Ethiopia. The latter attempted, over many years, to comprehend the trauma that AIDS victims live through. The result produced photographs, videos, local installations and performances that describe the unimaginable, terrifying and transformative psychological odyssey of losing loved ones to a stigmatised disease.
Other contributions included in the AFF are screenings such as “Memories of a Mexican”, a documentary film that depicts the Mexican revolution. It was produced by a father and daughter duo, Salvador and Carmen Toscano, and was originally featured in the 1950 Cannes film festival.
The other screening was “finding Viviane Maier”, which unearths Maier’s story, a nanny with a secret skill for photography and filmmaking. The film features John Maloof combing through thousands of negatives, Super 8 film footage and audio recordings that she left behind.
Tedros appreciated Aida for her hard work in making AFF “an important fixture” of the African and Addis Abeba art calendar.
“It (AFF) is a vivid testimony of the growing contribution of the diaspora to the transformation and the renaissance of our country,” he added.
He also added that the AFF offered an opportunity to host some of the world’s most inspiring and thought-provoking artists, and is a manifestation of an increasingly interconnected art world.
The other guest of honor, Firmin Edouard Matoko, highlighted Addis Abeba’s important role as a hub for nurturing contemporary creative industries on a global level in his address.
“One of the leading photo festivals in Africa, this event brings together artists from across Africa and the African diaspora, and creates an important platform through exhibitions, online networks, and media outlets that is changing the way people ‘see’ Africa,” he said.
He added that this festival promotes another image of Africa, on a global level, and embodies UNESCO’s conviction that culture is an ideal vehicle to promote dialogue, tolerance, and mutual understanding. He commented that he is pleased that UNESCO is partnering with AFF 2014.
Although AFF did not partner up with government entities in the previous years, for this edition AFF was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Among many of the other major private, national and multinational companies that supported the AFF were UNESCO, the United States Embassy and the Goethe Institute.
In 2010, when the first AFF opened with its first exhibit, “Ethiopia: Interior Visions”, which depicted different points of view on Ethiopia, it featured 30 mostly African participants. The event saw the number of participants grow to over 40 in the following year, adding the number of countries represented. In addition, 2012’s opening exhibition, “Addis Transformation,” was dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the city of Addis Abeba.
Since the first event in 2010, over 20,000 audiences have taken part. This helps achieve the event’s objective: to explore the notion of image through a global framework and engage a larger number of audiences through the promotion of activities in various online networks and media outlets across the globe.
“Our goal continues in each edition to provide opportunities to expose our participants and viewers to the various ways in which the image of Africa is portrayed”, said Aida. “Through various forms of images, the AFF aspires to show that to dream of a world without boarders, we first have to see images without the limitations of our imaginations,” she added.
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