Tesifa (2019) by Mikael Calandra Achode

Tesifa (2019).

MIKAEL CALANDRA ACHODE, INDEPENDENT GRAPHIC DESIGNER, TW 2019.

I’ve realised this piece at crossroads between editorial design and comprehensive art last summer in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It intends to be a speculation around the ideas of survival and self-preservation through the prisms of time, folklore and exodus.

Time as a fragmented succession of events is an alien concept within the majority of African folklores; consequently the three muses represent black bodies associated to the three measures of time, past present and future, and were photographed in the train station Legehar.

The piece engages graphically with elements that have been used and are currently used in popular media to portray narratives around African immigrants in european territory. Specifically Italy. Prior aggressor and oppressor of the Abyssinian country.

The three muses allegorically associated to Trojan viruses here, propose that survival, self-preservation and intrusion allow organisms to access extraneous domains critical information, perceived sense of immutability and of safety.

MIKAEL CALANDRA ACHODE