From December 9 to 13, lettera27 will land in Addis Ababa for a new chapter of AtWork, created in partnership with Addis Foto Fest, Ethiopian artist Aida Muluneh, and her company DFA (Desta For Africa). AtWork Addis Ababa Chapter 06 will be conducted by renowned art curator Simon Njami.
On April 27, at the invitation of Art Basel for Non-Profit Visual Arts Organizations, Fondazione lettera27 launched its first crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to implement the sixth chapter of AtWork.
After seven months, thanks to the generosity and support of all donors, AtWork Addis Ababa will bring together a pool of young creative minds at the Italian Embassy and the Italian Cultural Institute of Addis Ababa. Focusing on the theme “What is home?,” this new AtWork experience will be brought to life by 25 architecture, photography and visual arts students. The workshop will be conducted by an internationally acclaimed art curator Simon Njami. Addis Ababa is the sixth chapter of an extraordinary Pan-African journey started four years ago, which will hopefully be enriched with many other chapters. The main purpose of this network of participatory workshops is to support education, art and culture, promoting new forms of access to knowledge. The meeting point between the workshop and the Festival will be an “AtWork Public Lecture” held by Simon Njami and Elena Korzhenevich on December 16 at the Italian Cultural Institute of Addis Ababa. On December 17, the notebooks created during the workshop will be exhibited at the DinQ Art Gallery, in the context of Addis Foto Fest, which this year involves 132 international photographers from more than 40 countries. This exhibition will be an opportunity to bring the debates and themes of AtWork to the Festival’s international audience.
We believe that bringing AtWork in such complex context as today’s Ethiopia is an integral part of our constant commitment to art and culture as vehicles for social change.
We invite you to follow and support the activities of Addis Foto Fest (Facebook – Twitter) and Fondazione lettera27 (Facebook – Twitter) by following and sharing the hashtags: #AddisAtWork #AFF16 #addisfotofest #DFAplc #art #contemporary #photography #festival #Addisababa #ethiopia #africa
“It is important to create a new generation that will construct the future we all strive towards.
It is time for a new revolution in Africa.
And the only weapon we have is our brain and our capacity to think.”
Simon Njami
Claude Bunny Massassa is a contemporary artist from Gabon. She created Bunny Studio in 2016, a start-up dedicated to photography production, which became DWABI Studio in 2021. As an artist, she has represented Gabon in many international exhibitions in Senegal, Uganda, France, the United States, and Italy. In her art, she denounces social stigmas around issues of identity and mental health, and explores themes of traditions and myths.
Executive Director Kimberly Aceves- Iñiguez has been passionately committed for over 20 years to social justice organizing and advocacy efforts that bring voice and power to youth, LGBTQ people, people of color, and working-class communities in the Bay Area. Before coming on as the Executive Director for RYSE, Kimberly served as the Executive Director for Youth Together, the founding organization of the RYSE Center.
Kanwarpal Dhaliwal is one of the co-founders of RYSE and currently acts as the Associate Director. She supports and guides the implementation and integration of healing-centered practices, grounded in racial justice and liberation, and also develops, promotes, and advocates for policies, investments, practices, and research that enliven healing, justice, and liberation. Kanwarpal believes that the purpose of her work and life is to contribute to movements, communities, and legacies of liberation that honor the ancestors who fought for her existence and survival, and to forge a world that is just and gentle for future generations.
Sagal Ali is the founder and executive director of SAF. After a few years in her career in heritage protection in the cultural sector, she decided to develop the initiative to directly support young creatives in Somalia by launching her own foundation. She hopes to bridge the social gaps and inequalities women face in Somalia, both in society and in the arts scene.
Co-founders Catherine Dunga and Marleen Palmaers created Kitambo to bridge the gap between the African diaspora in Colombia and the narratives from the continent. From Kinshasa and Antwerp respectively, they work to connect African artists from the continent and their peers from the Colombian diaspora.
Martha Kazungu is a curator, art Historian and Founder of Njabala Foundation, an organization that curates periodic exhibitions and organizes a public program of activities to create a safe space for female artists to thrive and blossom.
Alicia Hansen is a photographer and teacher from New York. She founded NYC SALT in 2008 and, beyond teaching valuable creative skills to her students, has developed a long-term support system to uplift them through school and into their early artistic careers.
