Berlin has long been a city of reinvention – a place where history and modernity collide and where artistic experimentation thrives amid layers of urban memory. It is within this context that Emerging Berlin, Fotografiska Berlin’s forward-looking talent initiative, takes root. Launched to give early-career photographers a platform, the programme is more than an exhibition space – it is a research laboratory for new voices, a lens through which the multifaceted identity of Berlin is continually reframed.
Each year, six artists are selected through an open call to receive solo exhibitions, mentorship and opportunities for professional exchange. Through workshops, portfolio reviews and public engagement, Emerging Berlin functions as both a springboard and a dialogue, cultivating connections between artists and the community. It is here that Yero Adugna Eticha’s work Black in Berlin finds its natural home – a project that exemplifies the program’s commitment to visibility, nuance and depth.
Fotografiska itself has become a cornerstone of photographic discourse. Founded in Stockholm in 2010 and expanded to Berlin, Tallinn and Shanghai, the institution bridges local specificity and global reach, presenting exhibitions that merge artistry with social inquiry. Over the years, the gallery has showcased figures whose work defines contemporary photography – Nan Goldin’s intimate portraits of personal subcultures, Annie Leibovitz’s iconic celebrity studies and JR’s socially-engaged installations.
In Berlin, the museum’s Graffiti Hall – a former industrial space – has become a site where emerging and established voices converge, allowing photography to resonate within a broader cultural and civic context. The museum’s ethos extends beyond its galleries, offering social programming, late-night events and spaces where dialogue is as central as display. Within this ecosystem, Emerging Berlin both complements and amplifies Fotografiska’s global significance – it is a platform where the local becomes universal and where photography’s potential to shape perception is fully realised.
Eticha’s Black in Berlin, on view from September 16 to November 10, 2025, represents the culmination of 15 years of an evolving practice. Born in Oromia, Ethiopia and trained at Berlin’s Ostkreuz School of Photography, Eticha began his career by photographing friends and acquaintances in the city’s nightlife. What started as documentation gradually became an exploration of presence, identity and belonging.
The project crystallised in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, when Eticha witnessed the city’s Black community asserting visibility on a massive scale. In response, he distributed thousands of postcards inviting Berliners to his studio – more than 590 individuals accepted, engaging in extended conversations before stepping in front of his camera. “On the streets everything is hurried; there is no time for real dialogue. In the studio, by contrast, we could slow down. It became a safe space – a place where people shared not only their stories but their dreams,” Eticha notes.
The resulting archive – over 500 black-and-white portraits – speaks to both intimacy and social consciousness. Approximately 40 images are presented in the current exhibition and more than 100 were published in the 2024 Distanz volume Black in Berlin. Eticha’s approach resists reductionist narratives; instead, the portraits embrace multiplicity, highlighting the joy, resilience and complexity of Black life in Germany. Many of those portrayed grew up as the only Black person in school, university or the workplace, yet the exhibition situates these experiences alongside moments of levity, pride and communal solidarity. “These pictures celebrate Black joy and resilience; they hold both pain and pride. In the floating greys resides a complex truth: we are never just one thing,” Eticha observes.
In the broader contemporary landscape, Eticha’s work resonates with several peers who are similarly interrogating identity, diaspora and visibility. Zanele Muholi, the South African visual activist, has long employed portraiture to document the lives of LGBTQ+ communities in a context of systemic marginalization, emphasising both vulnerability and agency. Tyler Mitchell, the first Black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover, explores the intersections of youth, Blackness and cultural imagination, constructing images that are intimate yet expansive in their social reach. In Europe, Jamal Shabazz’s urban portraiture similarly chronicles everyday life and community dynamics, presenting a visual archive that asserts presence against erasure. Eticha’s work converses with these practices while remaining attuned to Berlin – it is an artistic intervention and a civic archive, situating individual stories within the city’s narrative.
Black in Berlin‘s significance lies in its synthesis of empathy, visibility and artistic rigor. The black-and-white aesthetic, a conscious choice, renders the subjects with a timeless quality, while the slow, deliberate studio encounters allow each individual’s character to emerge fully. The work is at once documentary and interpretive, straddling lines between witness, collaborator and artist. Beyond its visual impact, the project carries a social dimension – by facilitating dialogue and creating a repository of lived experience, Eticha generates a counter-narrative to the homogenising gaze often imposed by majority culture. Here, photography becomes a means of recognition, affirmation and shared understanding.
The curatorial collaboration with Marie-Luise Mayer, Exhibitions Manager at Fotografiska Berlin, further amplifies this vision, ensuring that the exhibition engages both aesthetic sensibilities and critical discourse. In partnership with IFA Berlin and WhiteWall, Black in Berlin exemplifies how local initiatives, global networks and meticulous craft can converge to produce work of enduring significance. This exhibition is a space for renewed understanding of what it means to inhabit Berlin as a member of its Black community.
Emerging Berlin, in this sense, fulfils its promise – it does not merely present work by new artists, but cultivates visibility, intellectual engagement and emotional resonance. Through Eticha’s lens, we encounter Berlin as a site of multiplicity, complexity and possibility. The exhibition challenges viewers to reconsider assumptions, to slow down and witness the nuanced truths of Black life in Germany. It is a quiet yet powerful manifesto and a celebration of the everyday resilience that shapes community and culture.
In an era where photography can be instantaneous, transactional and ephemeral, Eticha reminds us of the medium’s potential to hold time, space and human dignity. His portraits are both a testament and a conversation, asking Berlin and its visitors to see, listen and engage. Within the context of Emerging Berlin and the international reach of Fotografiska, Black in Berlin stands as a model for how local perspectives can resonate globally, offering a profound vision of identity, belonging and artistic commitment.
Yero Adugna Eticha: Black in Berlin is at Fotografiska, Berlin until 10 November: berlin.fotografiska.com
Words: Anna Müller
Image Credits:
1. Black in Berlin, Remigius Samha. © Yero Adugna Eticha.
2. Black in Berlin, Emilia, Michael, Joesphine. © Yero Adugna Eticha.
3. Black in Berlin, Jennifa. © Yero Adugna Eticha.
4. Black in Berlin, Noella. © Yero Adugna Eticha.
5. Black in Berlin, Vertel. © Yero Adugna Eticha.
6. Black in Berlin, Sir Dama. © Yero Adugna Eticha.
