Alumnus brings light to life in Ethiopia

 Visitors to the Center for Documentary Studies may not even notice the exhibition We Cheat Each Other. Pictures and letters are unceremoniously tacked to the wall with push pins, creating an undemanding presence that undermines its hefty emotional punch.

The show is a visual chronicle of the decade-long relationship between Duke alumnus Eric Gottesman, Trinity ’98, and Salamawit Alemu, an Ethiopian woman. Gottesman received a Hart Fellowship from Duke in 1999, sending him to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he met the then eight-year-old Alemu. Gottesman began to work with Alemu to document her life, eventually producing the letters, drawings and photographs that form the heart of the exhibition.

One of the show’s more appealing elements is its invocation of our voyeuristic tendencies. The somewhat random ephemera of Gottesman and Alemu’s relationship is displayed with no frames and minimal textual interpretation, giving the impression that one is going through a box of personal artifacts. Reading Alemu’s letters furthers this feeling of emotional trespass. Readers are confronted with reflections on her mother’s death and her future dreams--—all in a handwritten scrawl that quickly becomes familiar, perpetually evoking Alemu’s presence.

Part of the show’s interest comes from its fascinatingly fragmented subject. Alemu continually changes her first name and identity, evolving from young, orphaned Ruth into Meron, who works in a brothel. One gets the impression that Gottesman’s documentation of Alemu’s life both facilitates and captures her shifting subjectivity, making the exhibition a startingly intimate glimpse into the often private rapport between two people.

We Cheat Each Other is on display in the CDS’s Porch Gallery through Dec 19.