Wub Addis II: Painting a Vanishing City

Exhibition documents Addis Ababa’s fading neighborhoods through watercolor and acrylic

An acrylic painting measuring 1.3 meters by 1.8 meters greets visitors at the entrance of the second gallery room inside the Taitu Culture and Education Center. The canvas assembles fragments of Addis Ababa’s disappearing urban memory — market scenes, architectural details and streetscapes that have either been demolished or erased by the city’s rapid transformation.

Elsewhere in the room, smaller canvases capture neighborhood shops glowing after dark, their fluorescent light spilling onto roadside vendors selling roasted barley, corn and other street foods. Women sit beside improvised stalls, positioning themselves beneath the storefront light to continue trading into the evening.

The works form part of “Wub Addis 2 – Dej-af,” an exhibition featuring 48 paintings by the artist Harun Sulaiman. The show opened on May 15 and runs through May 31 at the Taitu Culture and Education Center, opposite St. George Church. Supported by the Addis Ababa City Administration Culture and Arts Bureau, the exhibition is the second in a planned trilogy of solo shows Harun intends to stage within a single year.

The exhibition brings together paintings the artist has developed over the past decade, tracing his long-running attempt to document the city before its older neighborhoods vanish.

The project emerged from Harun’s years as a student, when he witnessed large sections of Addis Ababa undergoing demolition and redevelopment. Historic houses and streets in areas such as Arat Kilo, Piazza and Tona Sefer disappeared alongside familiar urban landmarks, including the old sewing-machine districts.

Their disappearance pushed the artist into what became a decade-long visual archive. Traveling across the city with watercolor, acrylic paint and sketchbooks, Harun documented what he describes as the three defining elements of Addis Ababa’s identity: markets, neighborhood entrances and residential streets.

The first exhibition in the series, “Noon at the Market” (“Qetir be Gebeya”), was staged at Gola Art Gallery and focused exclusively on midday market scenes rendered in watercolor.

“Dej-af,” the second installment, shifts its attention to roadsides, alleyways, neighborhood thresholds, kiosks and small fruit and vegetable shops. For Harun, these storefronts function as informal social centers — the first point of contact residents encounter when stepping outside their homes.

“The neighborhood shop is where people ask for directions, look for missing relatives, exchange information and maintain social ties,” Harun said. “It’s more than a business space.”

He pointed to the large acrylic work at the entrance of the second room as one of the exhibition’s central pieces. “In that painting, I included elements that once existed in the city,” he said. “Especially things that, for me, clearly define the history of Addis Ababa’s markets.”

Thirty-two of the works in the exhibition are executed in oil and acrylic on canvas, focusing on the ordinary but deeply familiar spaces of neighborhood life. According to Harun, the production of the exhibition was carried out in formal collaboration with the Addis Ababa Culture and Tourism Bureau.

At the exhibition’s opening ceremony, Lubaba Jemal, deputy head of the Arts Sector at the Bureau, said the city administration supports such events to give artists both visibility and economic opportunity.

According to her, the exhibition illustrates how artists can merge Addis Ababa’s cultural heritage with personal artistic expression while preserving the city’s historical memory.

“The initiative carries significant value in using art as a historical preservation tool,” she said. “It documents the city’s historical journey and passes it on to future generations.”

Harun, who was born and raised in the Piassa neighborhood area commonly known as Eri Bekentu, later lived in districts including Gotera. His formal artistic training began at the Ethiopia-Abyssinia Art School before continuing at the Enlightenment Art Academy, where he studied the fundamentals of painting for a year and a half. He later enrolled at Teferi Mekonnen Polytechnic College’s Fine Arts program, graduating with a diploma in painting in 2003 (EC).

Eshetu Tiruneh, a painter and instructor who taught Harun at the Enlightenment Art Academy, described the exhibition as technically disciplined work rooted in realism.

“The paintings are executed in a realistic style that clearly demonstrates the artist’s talent, technical capacity and refinement,” Eshetu said.

He added that the recurring depictions of kiosks, alleyways and roadside markets function not only as artistic subjects but also as historical records for future generations.

“To see a student, I once taught produce work of this quality and maturity fills me with immense pride,” he told The Reporter.

Harun said the exhibition has been attracting between 200 and 300 visitors daily, ranging from children as young as seven to elderly residents in their seventies. Most attendees, he noted, fall between their late teens and middle age, drawn not only to the nostalgia embedded in the paintings but also to their technical execution.

Also attending the opening was Aklilu Mengistu, who said “Wub Addis 2” distinguishes itself through its treatment of vegetable markets and its nuanced use of light in watercolor compositions.

Aklilu argued that the city administration should preserve the exhibition as part of Addis Ababa’s evolving cultural archive.

“I hope the current Addis Ababa Smart City initiative will preserve these unique compositions in museums and public institutions,” he said. “They can help tourists and invited guests understand both the transformation of the city and its cultural heritage.”

As “Wub Addis” continues drawing large crowds, Harun said the third and final exhibition in the series will focus more heavily on the social life and historical landscape of neighborhoods that have disappeared or changed over time, including Doro Manekia and Teret Sefer.

The artist said the broader project is guided by his belief that fine art should document communities undergoing urban transformation while preserving their social memory.

“One aspect of art is the documentation of history,” Harun said. “Art has the power to present history in a clear and accessible way.”

المصدر: The Reporter (Ethiopia)