An ancient civilization still lives in “Andarge Asfaw: Ethiopia from the Heart.” This Ethiopian-born, Washington-based photographer is exhibiting 44 color and black-and-white images at Howard Community College in Maryland. (See more photos here)
The cultural continuity is seen most overtly in the photos documenting the deeply rooted Christian culture in Ethiopia.
One of the most resonant photos is “Ethiopian Cross.” This tightly cropped shot features a large, ornately detailed metal cross being held in black hands that serve as a human reminder of Christianity in Africa. It’s significant that these hands hold the cross across the person’s face and nearly obscure it, because the cross amounts to the person’s identity.
Churches are among the most frequent subjects in the show. An aerial view of the cross-shaped “Bete Giyorgis Church, Lalibela” reinforces the way in which devotion is stamped onto the very landscape. Interior views include “Inside Genet Mariam Church,” whose cave-like walls are painted with portraits of saints.
The vast, dry landscape is featured in many other shots. One of the photographer’s compositional strategies is to emphasize a single tree dominating its beautifully barren surroundings, as in “Sunrise in Baher Dar” and “Acacia Tree.”
Long shots of villages convey how their thatch-roofed houses and stone walls have an organic connection to the landscape. Similarly, human beings walk paths that have been taken for thousands of years. In “Father and Son Beginning the Day,” those two figures are seen walking away from us and into an enormous landscape. Although the boy turns around to look in the direction of the photographer, he and his father continue to drive their cattle down the road.
The exhibit includes its share of single portraits and also a few gatherings in which you get a sense of social life. Surely the busiest shot in the show is “Tree of Life (Gondar Market).” It features colorfully dressed vendors setting up under the branches of a big tree.
Even with the shade that tree provides, it’s telling that some of the people gathered in Gondar Market hold up umbrellas to provide further shelter from the sun. This scene speaks to the vitality of a very old culture that values the umbrella as well as the cross.
“Andarge Asfaw: Ethiopia from the Heart” remains in Howard Community College’s Rouse Company Foundation Gallery through April 18. There is a reception and gallery talk March 19, 6- 8 p.m. Call 410-772-4189 or go to www.howardcc.edu. Click here to see some of Andarge’s photo on exhibit.