Zoma Museum

Zoma was created by the artist Elias Sime and the curator Meskerem Assegued on a plot in southwest Addis Ababa, and the buildings are the first exhibit: walls of mud and straw shaped by hand and incised with patterns, thatched roofs, curved forms that owe something to vernacular building and something to sculpture, put up by local craftspeople using traditional methods. The site holds galleries showing contemporary Ethiopian art, an amphitheatre, a library, an organic vegetable garden and small farm supplying the cafe, a children's playground and a kindergarten, so it functions as a working neighbourhood institution rather than only a gallery. The whole thing is a deliberate argument about building with local materials in a city of concrete, and it is small enough to see in two hours.

History

The Zoma Contemporary Art Center was first presented to the public in 2002 at its first art happening, Giziawi #1, and it was named after Zoma Shifferaw, a young Ethiopian artist who died of cancer in 1979. It runs as an environmentally minded artist residency in two places, a house built by the artist Elias Sime in Addis Ababa and the historic village of Harla near Dire Dawa, and through its work with European and American galleries it has become an important channel for Ethiopian artists to show abroad; it is headed by the curator Meskerem Assegued (Wikipedia, Zoma Museum).

Highlights

• Mud and straw buildings - hand-shaped walls incised with pattern.
• Contemporary art - Ethiopian work shown in the galleries.
• The garden and farm - organic plots supplying the cafe.
• The kindergarten - the school operating within the grounds.

When to go

Year round; the museum is open most days and the gardens are best in dry weather. Weekday mornings are quiet. It closes on some public holidays.

Practical notes

The site is small and takes two hours at most. The collection changes and there may be little art on display between exhibitions. It is in a residential quarter away from the centre and traffic across the city is slow. Entry is charged and the cafe is expensive by local standards.

Nearby

Central Addis Ababa lies northeast.

Key facts