BLACK IN BERLIN
Exhibition | North American Premiere of photographer Yero Adugna Eticha's portrait-based project
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Goethe-Institut San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
- Price Free and open to the public
This exhibition marks the U.S. premiere of Black in Berlin, a portrait-based project by Ethiopian-born, Berlin-based photographer Yero Adugna Eticha, presented by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco.
The project emerged in the aftermath of Berlin’s silent 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstration, which drew 15,000 participants following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Yet the project’s origins trace back more than fifteen years, when Eticha envisioned using the camera to make his Black friends—and by extension, Berlin’s broader Black communities—visible on their own terms.
Across more than 590 black-and-white portraits, made over the span of several years in his Berlin studio, Eticha constructs what he calls a "portrait cosmos": a space of intimate, collaborative image-making that resists reductive representations. Each portrait functions as an encounter—at once personal and political—that archives diasporic identity while affirming the complexity of Black life in Germany.
Rather than centering on struggle, the project foregrounds presence, self-expression, and empowerment. The photographs carry both pride and pain, but they also celebrate Black joy, resilience, and the act of being seen. They invite viewers into moments of recognition, offering a visual manifesto against racist homogenization and a space for imagining community beyond imposed boundaries.
Black in Berlin is a project from within the community—an evolving archive, a tool for self-reflection, and a quiet, powerful gesture toward collective self-definition.
Viewing Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am – 4pm and by appointment.
Closed for the German Day of Unity (10/03), Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.
The exhibition is presented by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco in tandem with the Museum of African Diaspora’s Nexus: SF/Bay Area Black Art Week. Learn more here: nexus-sfbay.com
The project emerged in the aftermath of Berlin’s silent 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstration, which drew 15,000 participants following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Yet the project’s origins trace back more than fifteen years, when Eticha envisioned using the camera to make his Black friends—and by extension, Berlin’s broader Black communities—visible on their own terms.
Across more than 590 black-and-white portraits, made over the span of several years in his Berlin studio, Eticha constructs what he calls a "portrait cosmos": a space of intimate, collaborative image-making that resists reductive representations. Each portrait functions as an encounter—at once personal and political—that archives diasporic identity while affirming the complexity of Black life in Germany.
Rather than centering on struggle, the project foregrounds presence, self-expression, and empowerment. The photographs carry both pride and pain, but they also celebrate Black joy, resilience, and the act of being seen. They invite viewers into moments of recognition, offering a visual manifesto against racist homogenization and a space for imagining community beyond imposed boundaries.
Black in Berlin is a project from within the community—an evolving archive, a tool for self-reflection, and a quiet, powerful gesture toward collective self-definition.
Exhibition dates
October 1, 2025 – February 27, 2026Viewing Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am – 4pm and by appointment.
Closed for the German Day of Unity (10/03), Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.
The exhibition is presented by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco in tandem with the Museum of African Diaspora’s Nexus: SF/Bay Area Black Art Week. Learn more here: nexus-sfbay.com
Location
Goethe-Institut San Francisco
657 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
USA
657 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
USA
