Comprising texts, image essays, and sketches of the lengthy project, Practising Water; report #I catalogue was published in connection with the solo exhibition at Kunsthall Oslo in March 2023. Jan Vorwoert and Robel Temesgen have contributed texts on the project.

Design - Neslihan Ramsey, Kunsthall Oslo

Copy Editor - Will Bradley

This publication provides a comprehensive insight into the images of landscape by the Ethiopian-born artist Robel Temesgen, forming symbiotic associations with spirits and community and introduces the Addis Newspaper project, which consists of artistically designed pages from newspapers based on research in social media. A text by Jan Verwoert, and a conversation between the artist and the director of the Kunsthalle Lingen, Meike Behm, provide deeper insights into the content conveyed by the artworks.

Edited by Meike Behm and Friends of the Lingen Art Award.

Texts by Jan Verwoert, Meike Behm, Robel Temesgen.

Graphic design: Studio Manuel Raeder.

Fendika Cultural Centre presents “የሮቤል ተመስገን ተንሳፋፊ ጀበናዎች”, a solo exhibition by Robel Temesgen. In this Exhibition, Temesgen walks us through the “Nu Bunna Tetu”; the highly proliferating small scale coffee drinking spots and their emergence as alternative public spaces. In the fast changing character of Addis Ababa, the coffee spots have become an integral part of everyday life in areas ranging from the fancy multipurpose malls to the demolished as well as new construction sites in the city. Using the painting approach the artist developed over the years, Temesgen elevates the Jebenas/coffee pots beyond the customary. Owing to their compelling presence, “የሮቤል ተመስገን ተንሳፋፊ ጀበናዎች” looks into coffee pots as floating to survive, to make it through the hustle and bustle and continue to offer a platform that affords customers a shared place for conversations as they sip on their cup of coffee. Imagining sites of “Nu Bunna Tetu” as spots that somehow connect 'strangers' constitutes part of his continued interest in the socio-political dynamics of the social, sociality, and sociability and spaces at which this manifest. After years of exhibiting abroad, this Exhibition is Temesgen's first Solo show in Addis Ababa.

This publication in the form of an Amulet, archives photographs of some of the Addis Ababa's coffee spots. Since roughly the mid-2000, Ethiopian cities and their suburbs have gone through considerable change. Undeniably, this development has affected the forms of social life and sociability in the city. Culturally, making and drinking coffee is an invitation to people in the neighbourhood to come together and is one of the small hub available for social and political discussions. Today, there are coffee shops or 'nu, bunna tetu' spots setting-up as small businesses throughout the country. From the location to their setups of these coffee spots, I witness the importance of their role, as a public space and a place for communal interaction. Those spots have managed to carve new positions within the rapid 'development' in the country. From 2015 to 2019, this coffee spots are the few (and relatively) safer spaces left in the country for discussions on politics and social change. This amulet attempts to archive the transformation of public space that is intimately tied to traditional origins but situates itself within the 'urban'. As the book were published during the time when political reform was at the age and the nation was under State of Emergency, it was to undermine the physical presence in an attempt to avoid attention from authorities. This form of Amulet is common practice for protective prayers within the Coptic Orthodox church in Ethiopia. The publication was made as part of 'There is No Politics in Painting', a solo show at Marabouparken, Sweden, 2017.