“I was struck by somebody who felt so strongly about his art that he was willing to create something that would get him potentially killed.” The artist Eric Gottesman is telling me about the Ethiopian novel Oromay, which was published in Amharic by author Baalu Girma in 1983, was banned five days later and ultimately got its author killed. “That dedication of an artist to speak truth to power was humbling, awe-inspiring, confusing – it made me ask, why do we do these things as artists?”
Selections from Gottesman’s Oromaye Project – in which the artist uses Oromay as a template for creative photographic work – are on display at Fotografiska in New York through 22 October in the show Listen Until You Hear, co-curated by Michelle Woo and Jun Mabachi of the artist collective For Freedoms, and Amanda Hajjar and Meredith Breech of Fotografiska New York. The multimedia show, which encourages audiences to develop their skills for “radical listening”, includes a banned books annex featuring books that have been prohibited in American schools since 2021.
