CURRICULUM VITAE
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RECOGNITIONS

2012 Artist-in-Residency, Amherst College
2011 Apex Art Franchise Award
2009-2010 Fulbright Fellowship
2009 Artadia Award
2009 Aaron Siskind Individual Fellowship
2009 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship
2007 Open Society Institute Distribution Grant
2007 Reebok Human Rights Award Nominee
2003 25 Under 25

EXHIBITIONS (solo and group)

The Innu Project. Addison Gallery of American Art and the Peabody Museum of Archeology. Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. September 2012.

Untitled. Amherst College, Amherst, Mass. March 2012.

Tinsae. Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut, July 21 - October 2, 2011. Solo show selected by Andrea Grover, Deborah Willis and Susan Cross.

Picture Books. Clark Gallery. Lincoln, Massachusetts. June 2 - August 2, 2011.

East Meets West. San Francisco Art Institute. San Francisco, California. July 15 - September 10, 2011.

Paths That Cross Cross Again. Contact Photo Festival/TPW Gallery. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. May 10 - June 14, 2011.

Who Would I Be If I Weren’t Who I Am? Johnson and Johnson Gallery, New Brunswick, New Jersey, November 2010 – January 2011. With photo-historian Tanya Sheehan (Rutgers University) on the relationship between photography and HIV/AIDS.

It Is (Promised and) Written. Makan House, April 2010. Solo show of work produced in Jordan about broken promises and the early history of the creation of Israel in Palestine.

Artadia Awardees. The Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, March-May 2010. Curated by Jose Luis Blondet with work by Amie Siegel, Joe Zane, Ambreen Butt, Raul Gonzales.

Clark Gallery/Arsenal Center for the Arts. Lincoln and Boston, March-May 2010. Concurrent shows of work by winners of the 2009 Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist Fellowship.

We Cheat Each Other. Duke University Center for Documentary Studies, August 2009 – January 2010. Solo show and transcontinental performance, Play Each Other, held on September 25, 2009.

We’re Talking About Life and Culture. Public installation and collaborative project in Sheshatshiu and Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada, August 2009. With members of the Innu Nation and collaborator Wendy Ewald.

My Story to Tell. Abandoned Post Office in Whitesburg, Kentucky, April 2009. Public letter-writing and photography installation with Willa Johnson, Brittany Hunsaker and youth members of the Appalshop Media Institute.

Framing and Being Framed. Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University Museum of Art, September – December 2008. Curated by Nina Felshin with work by Alfredo Jaar, Emily Jacir, Susan Meiselas, Matthew Buckingham and Perry Bard.

If I Could See Your Face. Yale University Medical School, New Haven, Connecticut, September – December 2007. Columbia University School of Social Work, 2005. 

Everyone is Friends With Paulo Freire! PS122 Gallery, New York, 2007.  Curated by HOMEWORK with work by Lin + Lam, Carlos Motta and others.

Moving Walls International. Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo; Mustafa Ali Gallery and Art Foundation, Damascus; Third Line Gallery, Dubai; King Hussein Cultural Center, Amman; EspaceSD, Beirut.  2006-7. New York, Washington, DC, 2003-4. Curated by Susan Meiselas and Stuart Alexander with work by Aleksandr Glyadyelov Lori Grinker, Ed Grazda, and Rania Matar.

Picture Mourning. Duke Center for International Studies (with Fazal Shiekh, Susan Meiselas, and Bruce Davidson), 2006.

Edited (2-channel video installation). Bard College, 2006.

Abul, Thona, Baraka. Portable public installation/coffee ceremony on the streets and fields of various Ethiopian cities and villages, 2006. 

Tenanesh: She is Health.  University of Queensland, Australia, 2005.

I Was Not A Child When I Was a Child. Addis Ababa City Hall, 2004.

Ka Fitfitu Feetu. Addis Ababa City Hall and British Council, Addis Ababa, 2000. First-ever photographic exhibit held in Ethiopia about HIV/AIDS.

COLLECTIONS

FILMOGRAPHY

Another Beautiful.  Director.  (in production 2010- ) documentary about Ahmad Taher al-Safferini, a studio photographer in Zarqa, Jordan.

Adiga. Director of Photography.  (2010) Feature-length documentary of the Circassian population in Jordan.  Directed by Dalia al-Kury.  Produced for Al-Jazeera Documentary.

Fighting with Father. Producer/Editor. (2008) Screenings: International Film Festival Rotterdam (2010); Addis Ababa Film Festival (2008) Harvard University (2008). Directed by long-time collaborator Daniel Debebe Negatu and made in collaboration with Sudden Flowers.

Laughing Contest (2006). Director. Installed at Xenon Cinema, December 1-5, 2010 for the 2010 Berlin AIDS Film Festival.

The Mask Videos. Writer/Director/Producer (2006) Screenings: Gallery Wedat, Addis Ababa (2006); Bard College, New York (2006); Amherst College, Amherst, Mass. (2006). Made in collaboration with Sudden Flowers.

Time Out. Writer/Director/Producer. (2006) Screening: Alem Cinema, Addis Ababa, 2006.  Produced in collaboration with Sudden Flowers.

PUBLICATIONS

From Ethiopia to New Jersey: Photography and HIV/AIDS.  ed. by Tanya Sheehan. Johnson and Johnson, 2010.

“The AnySpaceWhatever.” The Balcony: An Idea in a Void, Amman: Makan House, 2010. Tasseographic imaginings after nine conversations on the future of an independent art space in Jordan.

“The Preservation of Terror.” Callaloo, ed. by Dagmawi Woubshet and Elisabeth WoldeGiorgis, March 2010. Essay and photographs about the legacy of the Derg government on Ethiopian imagemaking practices in an issue of African/African-American literary journal dedicated to Ethiopia.

“Flights: Beirut is a Beautiful Country.” ArteEast: The Art of Engagement, edited by Diana Allan, 2008. Essay and video stills in collaboration with unnamed Ethiopian migrant worker in Beirut.

“Representing HIV/AIDS in Africa: Pluralist Photography and Local Empowerment.” International Studies Quarterly. By Australian political scientist Roland Bleiker and Amy Kay about my work in Ethiopia. March 2007.

“Teaching After the Fall.” Art Journal, October 2005. By David Levi Strauss and Daniel Martinez; featured as Emerging Artist in article about radical art education.

“Burning and Shining.” Brooklyn Rail, May 2005.
Black: A Celebration of a Culture, edited by Deborah Willis. Hylas: Grand Rapids, 2005.

“So It Be Written in the Book of Love (Why Americans know Abu Ghraib was torture).” Shifter, 2005. Bangalore.

25 Under 25, ed. by Iris Tillman Hill. New York: powerHouse, 2003. Chosen as one of the top 25 American photographs under the age of 25.

I Wanna Take Me A Picture by Wendy Ewald. New York: Norton, 2001.

EDUCATION

TEACHING

Lectures/Panels:
2010 – Rutgers University, Department of Art History; Johnson and Johnson World Headquarters Gallery.
2009 – Bard College (with Carlos Motta); Nasher Museum of Art (with Dawoud Bey and Susan Meiselas).
2008 – Wesleyan University (with David Levi Strauss and Wendy Ewald); International Center for Photography; Cornell University, African Studies.
2007 – Amherst College; New York University (with Deborah Willis); Yale Graduate School of Art; Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
2006 – Serviço Nacional de Aprendigazem Comercial (Sao Paulo); Cornell University; Maryland Institute of Contemporary Art; Johns Hopkins University; Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts (Beirut); AIDS2006 (Toronto); Art Metropole (Toronto); Makan House (Amman, Jordan)

CURATORIAL

The End of Criticism.  Makan House, Amman, Jordan. September 21 – October 10, 2010. Work on censorship by Palestinian artist Annemarie Jacir and Palestinian-Jordanian artist Nidal El-Khairy.

TECHNICAL