Name Theo Eshetu |
Country Ethiopia / Italy |
Trip to Mount Zuqualla (2005) depicts, for example, in a complex three-channel projection a pilgrimage to Mount Zuqualla, a holy site for both Ethiopian Christians and Animists. With just one look, between respectful distance and intimacy, Eshetu depicts the religious ceremonies of both parties, whose high point generates the celebration of the coming together. The soundtrack composed of hip-hop, religious songs and a Bach symphony underlines the differences and similarities of both pilgrim groups.
Even Eshetu’s most elaborate video installation, The Return of the Axum Obelisk (2009), illustrates the connection between content and form. On 15 monitors, he shows how the obelisque of Axum is brought back to Ethiopia 70 years after Mussolini confiscated it. For the occasion, he created a monumental work, whose minute technical complexity honors the quality engineering of the resurrection at large. Particularly impressive is how all the images (on 15 monitors) combine to form one image as the last segment of the obelisque finds its place and the Italian and Ethiopian workers congratulate one another. In this, Eshetu approaches these cultural-political events via traditional Ethiopian painting in which he appropriates the original myth—the story of Queen Saba and her empire of Axum—in a modernized form and so the process of the resurrection of the obelisque becomes a “ritual ceremony of transformation.”