The Anglo-Ethiopian Society
Lecture - ONLINE - Art and Design in Jet Age Ethiopia
Kate Cowcher
Saturday 11th December 2021
Online event starting at 19:00 GMT - Public lecture (all welcome to join).
Note - Register for the event on Eventbrite and you'll be emailed a Zoom link shortly before the event.
In 1962 Ethiopian Airlines was the first airline on the African continent to purchase Boeing 720B jets. Jet travel revolutionised both global connectivity and perceptions of space, time and a country’s position in the world. The continent’s leading carrier soon advertised a historic, timeless Ethiopia, accessible on an unprecedented scale via cutting-edge technologies.
This lecture will share preliminary research on the impact of the jet age on Ethiopia’s artists in the 1960s, specifically focusing on the country’s pioneer industrial designer, Tadesse Gizaw.
Trained at New York’s Pratt Institute, Tadesse established the department of Industrial Design at the School of Fine Arts in Addis Ababa. He advocated for design education as critical to ‘self-sufficiency, change and progress’ (1967). He believed that the preservation of his country’s historic traditions was dependent upon harnessing and developing new technologies.
Alongside practical objects, like an ergonomic Amharic typewriter, he also produced abstract metalwork sculptures that explored the potential of what could be made visible. In the vibrant decade best known as the ‘Addis Spring', Tadesse’s visions were democratic and futuristic, and reflective of the creativity that the jet age inspired.
Kate Cowcher is a Lecturer in Art History at the University of St Andrews and is a historian of art from Africa, with a particular focus on Ethiopia, and on modern and contemporary practices.
Please reserve your place soon to avoid disappointment.
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| Tadesse Gizaw, Music, 1969. Collection of the National Museum of Ethiopia. |