SLEEPLESS CAPITAL

In-Picture

URBAN STROKES

A vibrant painting of a monkey clings to a roadside wall in Megenagna square, within Addis Ababa's burgeoning concrete landscape. New buildings rise daily, crowding the cityscape like trees in a dense forest. Yet, these bursts of graffiti and mural art appearing in the city's most bustling areas offer glimpses of the "Africa" held in our imaginations. They also serve as unexpected flourishes, breathing life into old walls that once displayed only the slow creep of vines for passersby...

SHAPE SHIFTERS

A floating spiral staircase statue with a lion at the end of it, stands tall at Addis Ababa University's Sidist Kilo campus, as one of the old statues that exist within the compound. The statues are not just monuments – they're relics of a former era. The university, established in 1934 as Haile Selassie's Grand Palace, holds the title of Ethiopia's oldest. It's a place that shaped Ethiopian history, producing figures like Aklilu Lemma (PhD) Today, the same grounds where emperors once walked,...

MARKET ROULETTE

In Merkato's Menyalesh Tera, an Isuzu truck briefly pauses as a towering pile of goods is loaded for its next journey. A steady flow of pedestrians weaves through the bustling crowd, while mobile merchants momentarily seek refuge from the sun in the truck's shadow before resuming their rounds, pushing wooden wheelbarrows baring fruits and vegetables across the city. Merkato, established in the 1930s under Italian rule as a segregated trading area, now thrives as the largest open-air market in Af...