TIGHTROPE: BEHIND THE PROCESSOR
Elias Sime incorporates the refuse from consumer electronics, repurposing salvaged components such as circuits and keyboards to create abstract compositions. The materials he uses are sourced from the largest open-air market in Africa located in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where Sime’s practice is based. Sime is uncompromising in his method of constructing elaborate arrangements from ephemera. The artist braids used wires into roiling terrains with biomorphic features, transmuting discarded technology into a more enduring powersource-art. The craftsmanship and seemingly-effortless universalism of the works re-frame the iniquitous global processes that have resulted in their formation. His work functions as a prism and kaleidoscope, on the one hand fearlessly aesthetic; on the other, a platform to confront challenging topics, which Sime proposes are not mutually exclusive goals.
He is deeply involved in developing the Ethiopian artcommunity and has established a research practices tudying the ancient rituals of rural communities in the country. In 2019, he co-founded and designed the ZOMA Contemporary Art Center in Addis Ababa (ET), working in cooperation with the founding director, curator and anthropologist Meskerem Assegued. In the same year, Sime was awarded the African Art Awardby the Smithsonian National Museum of African Artin Washington DC (US), and he was a 2020 Hugo Boss Prize Nominee. The artist was included in The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennial, Venice (IT) , curated by Cecilia Alemani.