Emebet Belete

Since graduating from the Addis Ababa School of Fine Arts in Ethiopia, multi-disciplinary artist and educator Emebet Belete has worked in mixed media, collage, oil, acrylic and printmaking. Her work has been shown internationally, from Ethiopia to Paris, and throughout Ontario. “I love to explore new ways of working with materials and new ideas,” she says. Her recent installation work has combined portraiture, language, and Ethiopian fabric in relating her cross-cultural observations.

After emigrating to Canada in 1997, Emebet completed degrees in both fine arts and education at Queen’s University, and continued to work as a studio artist. Her love of travel led her to Tianjin, China where she taught art to elementary students. She returned to Canada in 2013 and can now be found in Belleville, where she creates art in her studio and runs educational workshops.

Her current project, Bridging Communities, celebrates the diverse communities of the region, with the goal of involving the largest cross-section of the community possible in covering Belleville’s Upper Front Street Bridge with colourful crocheted squares. Throughout 2024, participants from the Quinte and Kingston region have created enough stripes, blocks and patterns to cover the Bridge’s pillars.

Emebet has run Crochet Circles in Picton at the County Arts Lab in February, and there are more sessions coming up in April, May and June! All crochet circles are free to attend, and yarn is provided. The official Bridging Communities Instagram and Facebook pages have all the important updates.

We were delighted to catch up with Emebet as she let us know more about the inspiration behind Bridging Communities, the magic of community art, and much more!

Tell us about any artistic projects you have going on this upcoming month.

My focus over the last two years has been Bridging Communities, as I work with the Bay of Quinte and beyond to crochet Belleville’s Upper Front Street Bridge. My inspiration for this project was Singapore’s painted Alkaff Bridge, and my belief that our region could come together and create a large scale installation work that inspires us through the arts. It’s been an amazing experience, as I work to involve more and more people throughout our region. I’m running crochet circles in Belleville, Trenton, Picton, and Kingston, through arts and other public organizations, with galleries, businesses and festivals. We’ve had two crochet exhibitions, with more events and locations to come in this next year.

Bridging Communities has me excited in so many ways. Each week I see creative individuals push the boundaries with the squares they’re crocheting for the bridge: from abstract design, to seascapes, and even naturalistic landscapes! Personally, I’m finding out how to make community art happen: from using social media to advertise our work, to making connections with organizations, to reaching out and finding people who want to join us in our goal of yarn storming the Bridge. I feel like with this project I always have something new on the go!

Which tools or resources have helped you the most in your artistic career?

A year after I graduated and had built a small studio on my parents’ property, my brother woke us up with cries of fire. Neighbours helped with buckets of water: our house and the neighbourhood was fine, but my studio was gone and I found myself starting out new, without even paint. A friend had given me a bunch of fashion magazines. I was flipping through them, and realized I didn’t need acrylic or oil. My studio ended up being a board in my bedroom, and I used magazine paper, glue and scissors. After a few months, I managed to have an exhibition with my collage works. I really had to think about colour and composition, because I had to find the right papers for everything I wanted to paint.

That’s really been the start of my lifelong approach to art, really thinking about mixed media, and how to create with all sorts of materials. I find I’m always thinking about new things, and wondering how I can use mixed media to express my ideas.

What is your favourite comfort food?

When I moved to Canada, one of the things I did was experiment in how to make Injera. When I go to Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa, I’ll often go to an Ethiopian restaurant, but living in Kingston I just missed having food from home. Injera is a slightly fermented flat bread. Food like doro wot (chicken) or lentils goes on top, and we use injera to scoop it up and eat. Growing up in a busy household, we’d usually sit together for meals. Even if my mom would sometimes make pasta or soup, I’d always prefer injera and wot. Figuring out how to make Injera with a different mixture of flours – I’ll use a mixture of teff and barley here – with a lower altitude and changing seasons – was complicated. I tried so many variations, writing down different steps, until I had it figured out!