ye hazene beredo

Coffee ceremonies and harsh winters color my daydreams of childhood...were they in the same place? Or did I just want them to be...were they even real? Addis Ababa harmonizes with Cleveland in this artifact of memory. Welcome to my Tezeta, where “home” is post-spatial. Adaptation from "Ferenj: A Graphic Memoir in VR" (2020), an afrosurreal pointcloud dreamscape harnessing the potential of nostalgia as a tool for the construction of home in diaspora. This artwork is an exercise in emancipatory thought using crowdsourced videos as materials with which to reconstruct fragmented, distortions of my nostalgia of growing up in Cleveland yet being surrounded by Ethiopian culture at home. Suggested music while viewing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1A5NTzSN08 "Ferenj: A Graphic Memoir in VR" trailer: https://vimeo.com/388419935 More on imaginary nostalgias: https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/survivance/381038/imaginary-nostalgias/