The Phoenix

Author: Hiwot Abebe - June 30, 2018

Artistic rendition of political turmoil in Ethiopia

Behailu Bezabih’s centerpiece, in his solo exhibition the Phoenix on displayed at Gebre Kristos Desta Center, is a large installation of burnt tire and coils of wire along with giant 3 to 5-feet long pencils carefully arranged on top of the pile and along the wall. The largest piece of the exhibition, its significance is not immediately apparent to those that had neglected to read the textual explanation posted at the atrium of the Modern art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Center.

Roughly translated, the text reads, “Line along the street are piles of rock, burning husks of tire that bore steel wires, fire, smoke, ash combined create coiled rings on the road … do these tattooed happenings leave us with destruction of resurrection?” Phoenix consists of installations, paintings and photographs, showcasing the wide range of artistry Behailu possesses.

The political atmosphere in Ethiopia is central to the conception of the exhibition. Amid region-wide protests that had sprouted across the country in recent years, Behailu lived 20 kilometers from Addis Ababa. In the chaotic Ormoia region, he happened to witness the aftermath of such a demonstration. Protesters had burned tires along the road, blocking all car and pedestrian traffic. He had noticed dark rings of fire rising up over buildings and taken photographs. He’d then travelled to the protest sites and took photographs of the signs and traces of the chaos.

The perfectly round scorch marks burnt tires left on the asphalt, says Behailu, reminded him of Olympic rings, sparking a series of thoughts that led to the conception of Phoenix. “The Olympic rings represent unity, equality, brotherhood.” There is a stark contradiction when seeing the rings as a result of such violence. “The scars left behind by the protest made me think of the possibility–from destruction to rebirth. Like the phoenix.”

Behailu had taken the remains of the burnt rubber tires and made them the central piece of Phoenix. Coils of wire that line the inside of tires burst out in the process of burning; these Behailu had snuck off in the trunk of his car. He had constructed various installation pieces that morphed from this initial element.

There is also a strong schoolroom motif in Phoenix. Wooden desks and pencil are art of a few of the installation, a medium Behailu had utilized in previous exhibitions. A teacher for the past 3 decades, behailu’s pencils represent the intellectuals of the country, defeated by existing power structure, indicated by the longer pencils that stand against the wall. He adds that a few schools had burned during these political protests in various areas across the country.

The photographs taken in the wake of the protest are presented in small intimate frames spread across a large expanse of the museum’s wall. The images are repeated in this arrangement; perhaps pointing at the multiple instances these scenes of destruction have taken place in Ethiopia.

Rebecca Solnit in her Essay ‘War’ in the collection The Encyclopedia of Troubles and Spaciousness explains the responsibility of the artist in making the invisible visible. “Artists are, at their best, honorary aliens seeing the familiar through strange eyes and the unseen in plain view.” She goes on to add “systems are hard to photograph but consequences are not … To see and to make visible is itself often a protracted process of education, research, investigation, and often trespassing and law breaking …”

Director of the Modern Art Museum Elizabeth Wolde Giorgis (PhD) points out that real social movements have not taken place in Ethiopia since the 1974 revolution and the dominance of social media has evolved political protests. The use of social media to mobilize these recent movements is quiet significant. “These protests come from multiple views. They aren’t led by a common ideology. So the question is how do we manage these protests? It should be a continuous debate because it will continue as long as technology continues to progress.”

Phoenix makes the distant and vague reality of these series of protest immediate. It confronts violence upfront, putting forward the human toll it has precipitated, shocking the placated. Government crackdown on dissent or expression of free thought combined with artists’ shying away from recording or representing political realities have made political art impossible. Behailu’s daring act hint at a ray of progress and possibility. 

The question Behailu wants to raise is one full of hope. As the phoenix rises up from the ashes, will this violence and destruction result in a new renaissance for Ethiopia?

Originally published: https://www.thereporterethiopia.com/5856/