For most of my life, Ethiopia, like many distant lands, has been brought to my attention only when some newsworthy event came into focus, filtered through the media.  In April 2007, I was fortunate to be able to travel to this country and experience the quiet beauty of Ethiopia and her people through my own lens.
 
Through a generous grant from the Illinois Arts Council, my colleague, staff artist Kaja Overstreet, and I represented A.R.T. through an international artists’ exchange and spent a very full month in Ethiopia.  Our goal was to begin to understand art and education in Ethiopian schools and to share what we know about teaching art in Chicago Public Schools.   It was a humbling experience which left me with as many questions as answers.  
 
We traveled from the bustling capitol city of Addis Ababa to the remote corner of Yetebon, which I have still not located on any map.  We visited the underground Orthodox Christian churches of Lalibela, where mass has been celebrated for nearly 1,600 years within the same rock hewn walls.  We observed people beginning their day traveling on foot or camel to fetch water from a well in the timeless city of Axum.  In places where few people enjoy electricity and running water at home, they were keenly aware of cell phones and digital cameras.
 
Along the way, I experienced the beauty of a people, who in the most dire of circumstances, exhibit enormous grace and patience for a faranji (foreigner) peeking into their world.  Despite my extremely limited ability to communicate, gesturing with my camera to ask their permission, I was often greeted with a nod of approval and a warm smile.  After seeing their own image on the small digital screen, they'd summon friends and neighbors to partake of this piece of immortality, proudly posing with their family and possessions.  These images are offered here as a glimpse into what is happening every day in another corner of our small planet.
 
All photos were taken with a Nikon Coolpix S10 digital camera
Special thanks to Memo Villanueva for his technical expertise and support.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

Picturing Ethiopia, Photographs by Susan A. Friel will be on view at the Loyola Museum of Art (LUMA) 820 N. MIchigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611 through November 4, 2007.