Aïda Muluneh

Ethiopian, born 1974

BiographyContemporary photographer Aïda Muluneh (b. 1974) was born in Ethiopia and spent her childhood living between Yemen, England, Cyprus, and Canada. In 2000, she received a BA in film from Howard University, Washington DC and subsequently spent several years working as a photojournalist for the Washington Post before returning to Ethiopia.

Muluneh has been widely acknowledged through many important exhibitions, most recently MoMA’s prestigious 2018 exhibition, Being: New Photography, and Afrique Capitales (2017) at Mois de la Photo La Villette in Paris. She was also the subject of a 2018 solo exhibition at Purdue University (W. Lafayette, IN). Muluneh was the 2010 winner of the CRAF International Award of Photography (Spilimbergo, Italy) and received the 2007 European Union Prize in the Recontres Africaines de la Photographie (Bamako, Mali). Her work can be found in the permanent collections of Dartmouth’s Hood Museum of Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, and the Museum of Biblical Art, Dallas.

In addition to developing her own artistic practice, she also advocates for broader international acknowledgement of African art and culture. She is the founder and director of the Addis Foto Fest, Ethiopia’s first international photography festival, and develops local and international cultural projects through her organization, DESTA (Developing and Educating Society Through Art). Muluneh is represented by Jenkins Johnson Gallery in San Francisco, CA and David Krut Gallery in New York and Cape Town, South Africa.

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