Africa Is a Country

Mahesh Shantaram’s Addis Ababa Diary

Mahesh Shantaram’s Addis Ababa Diary

By
Sean Jacobs

Images of Ethiopia by Indian photographer Mahesh Shantaram

Image by Mahesh Shantaram.

A while back we featured a random photograph of Indian photographer Mahesh Shantaram (I think Achal Prabhala got me onto Mahesh’s work). Email contact led to me asking him if we could post some of his “Addis Ababa Diary” series on AIAC. Shantaram, who also works as a wedding photographer from his base in Bangalore, explained what led him to photograph in the Ethiopian capital:

Much of my work is personal, experiential, and purely subjective. There is no urgent story that needs telling and the only truth in it is what I make up along the way. My trip to Addis Ababa was motivated by a simple desire to go some place about which I had very little knowledge and start the process of discovery from virtually zero. This series of street photographs is the result of my quest for the colour of Africa. People (who think Africa is a Country) ask me, “Why Ethiopia?!” Just before Christmas time in 2011, my wife used to live in Madrid and I was busy shooting all over India. We decided to meet at some place mid-way. A quick look at the world map suggested that Ethiopia was that place, and how fortuitous it was that Indians are welcomed with visa-on-arrival. That’s always a game changer. And so shortly thereafter, we landed at Bole International Airport without any plan other than to let one thing lead to another.

You can click through the whole Addis Ababa series here.

Further Reading

A power crisis

Andre De Ruyter, the former CEO of Eskom, has presented himself as a simple hero trying to save South Africa’s struggling power utility against corrupt forces. But this racially charged narrative is ultimately self-serving.

Cinematic universality

Fatou Cissé’s directorial debut meditates on the uncertain fate and importance of Malian cinema amidst the growing dismissiveness towards the humanities across the world.

The meanings of Heath Streak

Zimbabwean cricketing legend Heath Streak’s career mirrors many of the unresolved tensions of race and class in Zimbabwe. Yet few white Zimbabwean sporting figures are able to stir interest and conversation across the nation’s many divides.

Victorious

After winning Italy’s Serie A with Napoli, Victor Osimhen has cemented his claim to being Africa’s biggest footballing icon. But is the trend of individual stardom good for sports and politics?

The magic man

Chris Blackwell’s long-awaited autobiography shows him as a romantic rogue; a risk taker whose life compass has been an open mind and gift to hear and see slightly into the future.

How to think about colonialism

Contemporary approaches to the legacy of colonialism tend to narrowly emphasize political agency as the solution to Africa’s problems. But agency is configured through historically particular relations of which we are not sole authors.

More than just a flag

South Africa’s apartheid flag has been declared hate speech by a top court. But while courts are important and their judgments matter, racism is a long and internationally entrenched social phenomenon that cannot be undone via judicial processes.