A Phantasmagoric Journey

Curated by Elisa Giuliano, Cose Bizzarre marks the first solo exhibition in Italy of Jermay Michael  Gabriel (Addis Ababa, 1997) at ArtNoble Gallery. Gabriel is a transdisciplinary Italo-Ethiopian Eritrean artist whose practice revolves around “an experimental, often radical, effort to resist the  permanence and elusiveness of the Italian colonial archive, subverting its symbols of power.” The  exhibition features a series of new works created between 2023 and 2024, mapping a  “phantasmagorical journey” through the exploration and manipulation of key dualities: absence  and presence, form and transformation, making and being made. 

When I spoke with Jermay he was on his way to Toronto, where he spent nearly a month working. 

Jermay Michael  Gabriel: “People often focus on my curatorial practice, but please, in this interview, let’s only talk  about my artistic practice,” he asked with a smile, as if he had clarified this many times before. 

“The word bizzarre doesn’t have a clear etymology,” he explained. “The double z suggests a  connection to Arabic. I chose it because it was widely used in the communications of the Istituto  Luce, associated with Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Somali natives and ‘their fantasies,’ costumes,  dances, and food. These were referred to as cose bizzarre, tied to a magical and ritualistic world, an  unknown reality far removed from the West. It’s a term that immediately creates a sense of distance  from the ‘other’—the language of the civilizer.” 

Upon entering ArtNoble Gallery, the lively hum of voices attending the opening reception fills the  space. A digital lightbox reminiscent of a bus stop sign hangs from the ceiling and immediately  catches my eye. It displays street names that don’t exist. The artwork, titled Italy Sightseeing  (2023), traces an imagined bus route starting in Catania and ending in Milan, with the final stop at  ArtNoble Gallery. Along the route, the bus makes stops at various streets, including Via Assab,  named after the bay that marked the beginning of Italian colonialism in 1882; a fictional itinerary  that highlights the symbolic role of street names in shaping and perpetuating colonial memory. 

The exhibition itself unfolds as a series of imagined stops tied to real historical narratives, blending  sarcasm and somber reflection. By manipulating and reframing these histories, the works alternately  obscure and expose hidden memories, prompting the audience to engage in an active dialogue with  the past. Along the gallery’s wall, three marble slabs are engraved with street names: Via Dogali,  Via Adwa, and Via Ambara. 

Jermay: “Via Adwa references the Battle of Adwa in 1896, the first major defeat of a European power by  an African nation. This street commemorates a lost battle rather than a victory. I chose to write  Adwa with the correct spelling, using a w. The Italian u version reflects a colonial adaptation of the  name. Instead of erasing or correcting the Western narrative, I wanted to reveal how it obscures  failures and reframes them as triumphs. Today, the battle of Adwa is rarely discussed—not to  preserve its memory but to avoid it altogether.” 

Via Dogali marks another lost battle for Italy, shortly before that of Adwa. 

Jermay: “The third slab, referencing Ambara, plays on the similarity to the term Ambaradan, which has  entered the Italian lexicon as a synonym for chaos. The Battle of Amba Aradam was part of Italy’s 

brutal campaign during the second invasion of Ethiopia in 1936. Unable to claim a clear victory,  Italian forces bombarded a cave where women, children, and relatives of Ethiopian partisans had  taken refuge, killing nearly 40,000 people in four days. The then King of Italian East Africa  proclaimed: ‘We’ve made quite an ambaradan. Ethiopia is ours!’” 

Also on display are embossed panels featuring various dates, some of which are crossed out in red.

Jermay: “Is colonialism an act of thought or action? Does the Middle Ages end with the discovery of the  New World or with the emergence of imperial ideology? Officially, Italy recognizes the date of the  Battle of Adwa as 1896. However, the Ethiopian date is 1889, seven years earlier. Typically, the  victor’s timeline is the one adopted—so why is this not the case here?” 

Another panel includes the acronym AOI (Africa Orientale Italiana), with the letter “I” crossed out  in red, leaving only the first two initials. 

In his previous works, Jermay directly manipulated materials—burning, gilding, or concealing  them. His approach has now shifted. The exhibition includes new pieces, such as 21 archival prints  of photographs taken in colonial territories. These family portraits and landscapes were exposed to  the elements for months, and the resulting images bear the marks of time: washed out, eroded, and  partially obliterated. These altered photographs suggest a haunting presence, caught between  visibility and disappearance. They embody the fragile and fragmentary nature of memory, shaped  not by distortion but by the passage of time itself—remnants of stories suspended between existence  and oblivion. 

Jermay: “As writer and activist James Baldwin once wrote, ‘I am what time, circumstances, and history  have made of me, but I am also much more than that. And so are we all.’ (Baldwin, Notes of a  Native Son, 1955). I deeply resonate with this quote, because I don’t see myself as an exception. My  exhibition doesn’t focus on my personal identity; instead, it addresses themes of material, visibility,  and memory. The artist’s role (though I hesitate to use that term for myself) is to reframe history,  leaving a personal imprint driven by a deep inner need. I raise questions, I suggest things be hidden  and obscured, only to later reveal them under different lenses. But I can’t control whether the  audience will engage in this process. It’s beyond my control.” 

Jermay shared that a forthcoming artist’s book by critic and curator Simon Njami is set to be  published soon. Njami has, among other works, written a biography of Baldwin titled James  Baldwin – ou le devoir de violence.  

Jermay: “Njami,” Jermay recounts, “has played a crucial role in giving many Black artists the opportunity  to exhibit and work in Europe.”  

The book compiles Njami’s research over the past five years, during which he explored various  archives, including that of Martini, the first governor of Eritrea, in Pistoia.  

Jermay: “One passage in particular resonated with me, where Njami discusses how Black people shift  from being completely invisible to becoming hyper-visible; as if they’re denied a state of normalcy,  forced to exist at either extreme. You’re either visible or invisible, poor or rich.” In his works, Jermay plays extensively with the concept of invisibility and hypervisibility.

Clara: “Your works seem to intentionally blur and distort not only images but also preconceived  assumptions and concepts as if you’re aiming to confuse or disorient them. When reading the  exhibition text, I paused on the section where the dualities of absence and presence, form and being  formed, making and being made are discussed.” 

Jermay: “I ask questions rather than providing definitive answers; therefore, duality is intrinsic to my  work, leaving space for multiple interpretations. I’m not concerned with providing solutions.  Interestingly, there’s always an expectation for black people to reveal the truth, or at least offer an  alternative to the one commonly accepted. But honestly, I don’t claim to know what the truth is. No  single black person can represent everyone in the community. We’re not a monolith. The black  community is vast and fragmented. I can only speak for myself.” 

Clara: “And returning to the act of blurring, what role does dust play?” 

Jermay: “Dust is like a desert, and so is the charcoal when I scatter it on the ground. The dust of the  desert must be stirred, and this act entails a constant dialogue. Yet, the only force that can truly  affect it is the wind and time itself. History cannot be taken as it is; it shifts and must be  reinterpreted according to the time we live in. The interpretation of the same action changes over  time.” 

By delving into and experimenting with archaeology and historiography through an imagined  narrative, Jermay’s works assemble a romanticized and expanded archive, in which fiction acts as  an essential tool for rewriting coordinates and diverting pre-established paths. The expectation is for  the narrative to be rooted in concrete facts, and to establish its foundation in verifiable truths.  However, fiction emphasizes the importance of what is left unsaid. This approach serves as a form  of resistance against a colonizing tendency to categorize, instrumentalize, and force a personal  history into a universal narrative, flattening the human experience to make it fit within a non-existent universal category. 

Clara: “The image of dust leads us to another scenario: the mirage. Can you expand on that?” 

Jermay: “If dust symbolizes the desert, then the mirage is the vision that appears within it—emerging  when the body and mind are exhausted, creating illusions for protection. Though the mirage is  unreal, it appears strikingly vivid. It dissolves, only to return in a new form. It’s both a mesmerizing  and unsettling image. Ultimately, it’s a dreamlike journey, not one based on logic or consequence. It  can manifest as a nightmare, or it can resurface old memories.” 

The manipulation of images becomes a means to reclaim and pull them away from a contaminated  lens. The dust acts as a tool to obscure, blurring the lines before it is itself distorted. The weathering  of the images occurs before they can be corroded or appropriated by a dominant, distorted, pseudo historical narrative. Chance plays a significant role in this story, but it is a “dormant” chance—one  that hides within us all, waiting for the right moment to come alive in the present. 

One of the most compelling pieces in the exhibition is Meskel (2024), a large site-specific  installation featuring charred wood. ”Letters were crafted from wood, which I later destroyed.” Jermay views this act as a metaphor for renewal. “When something is burned, a beautiful  transformation occurs, one that farmers across the world are familiar with: the material shifts from  wood to charcoal, then to ash. Ash is a powerful fertilizer, enabling growth. I like to believe that  destruction, when used as a narrative tool and gesture, does not necessarily result in loss or  emptiness. Death or rebirth? The material doesn’t disappear; it changes and returns in a new form.”

Echoing the role of fiction as a creative tool in writing, Jermay constructs fictional narratives that  engage the imagination, producing diverse interpretations based on the viewer’s perspective. At  times, viewers inadvertently reconstruct or adopt narratives that, unsettlingly, mirror those crafted  by others, all while believing themselves to be acting freely and imaginatively, unrestrained by any  external influences. They often fail to realize that their actions and thoughts have been subtly  shaped from the outset by deeply ingrained prejudices and assumptions.  

Are these biases that Jermay is addressing? Anyway, he won’t answer; perhaps what truly matters is  the question itself.