Dawit L. Petros

Dawit L. Petros, born in Eritrea, lives and works in Chicago and Montreal. He spent his formative years in Ethiopia and Kenya before settling in Saskatchewan with his family in the 1980s. These experiences of migration helped shape his artistic practice. Through his work, Petros investigates the entanglements of colonialism and modernism that bind Africa and Europe, from both a historical and contemporary point of view. While his core medium is photography, he works across a range of other media, including sculpture, video, sound and installation. His photographs raise questions about displacement, identity and the transnational experience of cultural negotiation.

Dawit L. Petros
Dawit L. Petros, Act of Recovery (Part II), 2014, printed 2016 (archival pigment print; 50.8x66cm). AGO purchase, with funds from the Canada Now Photography Acquisition Initiative, Edward Burtynsky and Nicholas Metivier, 2021. ©Dawit L. Petros. Courtesy the artist and Bradley Ertaskiran. 2021/50

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