Public Art Fund debuts This is where I am, an exhibition of 12 new photographs by Aïda Muluneh on over 330 JCDecaux bus shelters across New York, Boston, and Chicago in the United States, and Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire. The exhibition marks both the artist’s first public art exhibition in Côte d’Ivoire and the first time that Public Art Fund presents artwork on the African continent, expanding the organization’s partnership with JCDecaux beyond the United States. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Muluneh’s practice focuses on her cultural heritage as a way to explore themes of history, politics, sense of place, and other pressing issues such as the climate crisis. For this new series, Muluneh drew inspiration from Ethiopian poet Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin’s “This is where I am”. Written in 1974–the year that marked both Muluneh’s birth and the start of the Ethiopian Revolution–the poem and the resulting body of photographs are markedly personal. The series bridges past and present, as Muluneh examines her experiences as an immigrant and Ethiopian woman, reflects upon the various political regimes she has lived through, and borrows visual language from religious iconography.
