What is time? A Minneapolis exhibit explores the Oromo understanding of it

Mara: 40 Years of Oromo Knowledge Making will be at Soomaal House of Art, 2200 Minnehaha Ave, in Minneapolis through Sunday, Aug. 16. Photo: Binta Kanteh

“Time has been a blur,” “What is time?”, “We’re going backwards in time.”

These kinds of phrases don’t only expose how inundated we are or how we perceive political shifts, they also offer insight into our relationship to time and how our culture defines it. 

Mara: 40 Years of Oromo Knowledge Making is a new exhibit at Soomaal House of Art that focuses on the Oromo understanding of time is the focus. The exhibit is curated by Minneapolis resident Ayantu Tibeso. She says understanding knowledge systems can help us understand where we are today and where we’re headed. 

“African knowledge systems have a lot to speak to our contemporary issues in the world and have a lot to teach us about governance, politics, living together, [and] how to think about time,” Tibeso said. “My hope is that whoever walks into this room takes the ideas seriously.”

Mara exhibit curator, Ayantu Tibeso. Mara, is an Oromo concept of time that speaks to the idea of time being circular instead of being linear, a concept that is shared across Africa. Photo: Binta Kanteh

A longtime resident of Minneapolis, Tibeso was born in Ethiopia and moved to Minnesota when she was a teenager. According to the Minnesota Historical Society, Minnesota is home to the largest population of Oromos outside of Ethiopia and Kenya. 

“Until 1992, our own people couldn't use our language in the schools due to Ethiopian colonial processes that took our land and the lands of other Indigenous people,” Tibeso said.

Tibeso’s interest in preservation across time captivated her. In fact, it was the focus of her PhD while studying at University of California (UCLA). She interviewed elders who were the first generation to write about Oromo people and younger generations  in Ethiopia and Northern America.

“I was interested in how people who have been silenced within a state, whose histories have been erased–how do such a people go about remembering who they are and preserving their culture and their knowledge systems?” Tibeso said. 

The Mara exhibit features work of three artists, one of them, Agartuu Inor, is a local Oromo American artist, whose primary focus is sculpture and installation art.

Mara exhibit curator Ayantu Tibeso (left) with artist Agartuu Inor (right). Photo: Binta Kanteh

Inor’s art isn’t just for observation but is activated through communal spaces. Inor’s contribution to the exhibit is a sculpture inspired by indigenous Oromo architecture that holds a library of African and Indigenous literature that is a part of the artist’s Barakah Library. 

Inor is excited to show her art for the first time in an exclusively Oromo context.

“For African diaspora people, specifically the youth, to be inspired to create art and to engage with it seriously, and to see it as something that is for them and from them also. I think this show brings a lot of language that is reviving a lot of histories that have been forgotten,” Inor said. 

The exhibit's current home, Soomaal House, is a Minnesota-based Somali artists collective and gallery near the Cedar Riverside Neighborhood of Minneapolis. Kaamil Haider, the co-founder and co-director of Soomal House, says that art is a way to facilitate dialogue between communities. 

“When she (Tibeso) approached me with the idea of exhibiting at Soomaal, we welcomed it right away,” said Haider. “There's that two-way conversation that takes place between the work that is up on the wall but also the invitation of the community to reflect and interpret.”

The exhibit runs through Sunday, August 16. To learn more about Mara: 40 Years of Oromo Knowledge Making, visit their Instagram page.