AIDA MULUNEH, THE SACRED MEMORY OF THE DIVINE, 2017

Starting June 12, the Playlist Gallery by Giampaolo Abbondio in Milan presents Aida Muluneh, an internationally renowned Ethiopian photographer who has revolutionized the visual narrative of the African continent. Her images, suspended between photography and painting, depict an Africa far removed from stereotypes, populated by hieratic, symbolic female figures who guard ancestral memory and a regenerative present.

A former photojournalist for The Washington Post, Muluneh has exhibited in the most important international museums, from MoMA to Tate, and is the founder of key festivals and platforms for the promotion of African photography. In her work, the image becomes a political and spiritual act, a sacred space where primary color and geometric composition reflect the dialogue between migration, identity, and belonging.
Through a powerful and unmistakable visual style, Muluneh "redraws" contemporary Africa with images that speak to all of humanity. As critic Jacqueline Ceresoli, whose text introduces the exhibition, states:  "Her photographs are visionary windows that compel us to see another Africa: enigmatic, ritualistic, sublime. A land that migrates and remains at once, inhabited by timeless and placeless goddesses."

As is customary for the gallery, the exhibition title is inspired by a piece of music: The Homeless Wanderer by Ethiopian pianist and composer Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou. A bittersweet echo accompanies the viewer's gaze, becoming the soundtrack to a silent and powerful diaspora.
The exhibition will be on view until July 30, 2025.

Aida Muluneh (Addis Ababa, 1974) graduated from Howard University in Washington D.C. with a degree in Communications, specializing in Film. Her photographs have been widely published and are part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the Hood Museum, the RISD Museum of Art, and the Museum of Biblical Art in the United States.
In 2007, she won the European Union Prize at the Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie in Bamako, Mali; in 2010 she was awarded the International CRAF Photography Award in Spilimbergo, Italy; and in 2018 she was selected as a CatchLight Fellow in San Francisco, USA.
In 2019, she became the first woman of African descent to co-curate the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition, and returned the following year as the commissioned artist for the same award.

She has served on the jury for various photography competitions, including the Sony World Photography Awards and the World Press Photo Contest in 2017. Muluneh has also taken part in many debates and conferences on photography, such as the African Union Cultural Summit, Art Basel, TEDx/Johannesburg, and delivered the renowned Sem Presser Lecture at the World Press Photo Festival in Amsterdam in 2019.
A Canon Ambassador, Muluneh is the founder of Addis Foto Fest (AFF), the first international photography festival in East Africa, held since 2010. As an educator and cultural entrepreneur, she continues to develop projects with local and international institutions in Ethiopia and Côte d'Ivoire.