MAHEDER HAILESELASSIE

Intimate Spaces


I portray the owners by photographing their walls. I question, “what do people put on their wall?” and explore into my understanding of identity, family, history, prestige and nostalgia through different private and public spaces. 

Sometimes the wall is a platform for pride and other times it can be just an extra space. Depending on the demography, the person or the status, walls maintain different functions for different people. 

Our walls show the ambivalence created in our minds in a fast moving and transformative age. In one way, this originates from a strong sense of belonging, tradition and pride coming from the history of the country. In another, information, globalization and a sense of longing for what is on the other side of the fence and what exists beyond ones very own chaotic journey to create one’s own imaginary utopia resides. 

Walls, although used as a canvas to reflect one’s own identity, they’re also boundaries, territory marks and securities against outsiders in a physical sense. It’s the idea of creating a boundary and at the same time a desire of claiming an ownership and belonging. 

Through this series, I hope to raise the question of identity rather than answer it. I want to spark a question in the viewer about the identity of those who own the wall and who engage with it every day. 

Using Format