BERLIN.- It began some fifteen years ago with a deceptively simple idea: Yero sought to render Black life visible in Germany. “At first I photographed friends and acquaintances. Back then, I didn’t quite know why. Only later did the deeper impulse reveal itself.”
Born in Oromia, Ethiopia, Adugna Eticha first turned his lens on Berlin’s nightlife at the age of 29. From 2008 to 2011 he studied at the acclaimed Ostkreuz School of Photography. Today, he divides his time between Berlin and Addis Ababa, collaborating with institutions including the Akademie der Künste, the Festival of Future Nows, and Studio Olafur Eliasson, while continuing to cultivate his own artistic vision. This breadth of experience also shapes Black in Berlin, on view at Fotografiska Berlin from September 16 to November 10, 2025.
The contours of the project emerged in 2020, when some 15,000 people filled the streets of Berlin in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Confronted with the scope of the city’s Black community, Eticha distributed thousands of postcards inviting people to his studio. More than 590 individuals accepted the invitation, engaging in extended conversations before stepping in front of his camera. “On the streets everything is hurried; there is no time for real dialogue. In the studio, by contrast, we could slow down. It became a safe space – a place where people shared not only their stories but their dreams.” The result is an extraordinary archive: more than 500 black-and-white portraits. Over 100 were published in the 2024 Distanz volume Black in Berlin; around 40 are now presented in the exhibition.
With Black in Berlin, Eticha challenges reductive stereotypes, fosters intimacy, and illuminates diasporic identity — a quiet manifesto against the homogenizing gaze of majority culture. Most of those portrayed grew up in Germany. “Many were the only Black person at school, at university, or in the workplace,” Eticha recalls. Within the exhibition, these lived experiences are brought into view, presenting Blackness in Germany not solely as struggle but in its multiplicity. As the photographer himself notes: “These pictures celebrate Black joy and resilience; they hold both pain and pride. In the floating greys resides a complex truth: we are never just one thing.”
Yero Adugna Eticha was born in Oromia, Ethiopia, and lives between Berlin and Addis Ababa. From 2008 to 2011 he studied at the Ostkreuz School of Photography, where he developed a documentary approach that addresses social and political issues as well as their staging, while always emphasizing the human dimension. He collaborates with institutions such as the Akademie der Künste, Tanz im August, the Festival of Future Nows, and Studio Olafur Eliasson, alongside his own projects. Most recently, he traveled to several Ethiopian cities for his project Yeroo Kenyaa.
