Panhandle OKlahoma

Impermanent Presence is a participatory artwork rooted in the Ethiopian coffee ceremony. Each gathering brings people together over coffee for conversations about connection, memory, and the places we call home. The time spent together becomes part of the work. Long-exposure photography, cyanotypes, mixed media, and other photosensitive materials carry traces of the people, plants, and conversations present. The resulting works hold something of a space that existed only because people came together.

In January of 2018, using photography as a tool, I set out to explore the three counties that form the Oklahoma Panhandle: Cimarron County, Texas County and Beaver County. These counties cover approximately 3.6 million acres of land. As an Ethiopian American who explores the idea of the American West through photography, the Panhandle of Oklahoma gives me a new landscape from which to observe place-making and the ways communities forge meaning from the spaces they call home. I am also looking at the changing economy and the culture. For example, in Guymon, Oklahoma, there are over 30 different languages spoken alone. What does this new American narrative look like coming from the Panhandle of Oklahoma? In addition, I am interested in capturing the unique beauty of the landscape in what has been formerly known as ‘no-man’s- land’.