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.

What you actually see

• 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.

Honest expectations

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.