Yero Adugna Eticha
Black in Berlin
It began some fifteen years ago with a deceptively simple idea: Yero Adugna Eticha sought to render Black life visible in Germany. Then, in 2020, the contours of the project emerged, when some 15,000 people filled the streets of Berlin in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Confronted with the scope of the city’s Black community, Eticha distributed thousands of postcards inviting people to his studio.
“At first I photographed friends and acquaintances. Back then, I didn’t quite know why. Only later did the deeper impulse reveal itself.”
More than 590 individuals accepted the invitation, engaging in extended conversations before stepping in front of his camera. As a result, the project became an extraordinary archive: with more than 500 black-and-white portraits – of which around 40 are now presented in the exhibition.
Through Black in Berlin Eticha challenges reductive stereotypes, fosters intimacy, and illuminates diasporic identity – a quiet manifesto against the homogenizing gaze of majority culture. Most of those portrayed grew up in Germany. “Many were the only Black person at school, at university, or in the workplace,” Eticha recalls. Within the exhibition, these lived experiences are brought into view, presenting Blackness in Germany not solely as struggle but in its multiplicity.
“These pictures celebrate Black joy and resilience; they hold both pain and pride. In the floating greys resides a complex truth: we are never just one thing.”
CREDITS
The exhibition was curated by Marie-Luise Mayer, Exhibitions Manager at Fotografiska Berlin, in collaboration with the artist, realized in partnership with IFA Berlin, and produced in friendly cooperation with our photography print partner WhiteWall.
