Visits

Luise Amtsberg, Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy, and Humanitarian Assistance at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany visited the Goethe-Institut Äthiopien during her official visit to Ethiopia between 11 and 14 April 2023.

Following her meetings with local governmental and non-governmental stakeholders involved in humanitarian affairs, the Goethe-Institut Äthiopien hosted an evening reception for Luise Amtsberg on Tuesday, 11 April 2022 attended by artists, creative enterprises, and civil society. During the overall programme, various artists from Ethiopia presented their projects, motivations, and ideas along with the relevant social issues they attempt to address with their works. The seven participating photographers on the Goethe-Institut’s "Water in Ethiopia" project, a project Lusie Amtsberg was familiar with, also showcased their works from 2022 and offered a peek into the photo stories they had just developed in Bahir Dar for an exhibition later this year.

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On the occasion of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's trip to Ethiopia and Kenya, the cultural delegation accompanying him visited the Goethe-Institut in Addis Ababa on the afternoon of 4 May 2023 at the suggestion of the German Embassy for a "cultural coffee talk" with Ethiopian cultural professionals. The guests included Dr Andreas Görgen, Head of the Office of the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media in the Federal Chancellery, Meryem Korun, Director of TheMuseumsLab at the Museum of Natural History Berlin, the scholar and critic Dr Joyce Nyairo and the artist and filmmaker Marie Steinmann.


After the invited partners of the Goethe-Institut's cultural work had introduced themselves with their thematic focuses, projects, motivations and ideas, the delegation got into conversation with the Ethiopian guests from film, literature, civil society organisations and museums over traditional coffee about questions on the current Ethiopian cultural and creative landscape, about Ethiopian and German cultural and museum policy, about decolonial approaches, women's rights and gender issues as well as cooperation with Europe.