A couple of hours walking the streets of Addis Ababa.
Looking for colour.
Making images for the sheer novelty of it.
The light of an African afternoon.
I’m in Addis Ababa for the first time in eight years on a writing job but stumbled across a beautiful place seemingly frozen in time. If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know of my obsession with the Delhi Coffee House and all those sadly missed palaces of melancholy, the Classic London Caff.
It’s always a pleasure to stumble on a place like this – officially known as the Ras Mokonnen Pastry shop in Piazza – especially when I can’t find any mention of it online. The elderly owner, Mr Lubo tells me he bought it from a Greek man ‘about thirty five years ago’. He’d had it for at least ten years before that and he wasn’t the first owner…
Perfect macchiato, perfect baklava. A moment in time that I wasn’t expecting to find.
Many thanks to my excellent translator, Lily, (Simegnish Yekoye) not least for putting up with my excitement…
You can find it in Piazza – there’s no sign…
Just returned from a lovely week in Jersey opening the Human Rights week with my exhibition. Great response and a pleasure to be involved in Amnesty’s work and education programme. I spoke at half a dozen schools and also to BBC radio Jersey about my work. You can hear the interview here.
Prints by John Cleur at Metro looked extraordinary. Many thanks to everyone that came along, listened and looked.
Delighted to be featured again on the EPUK showcase with some work from Delhi that will be shown at the Amnesty Festival in Jersey as part of my exhibition, The Art of Getting By