Vintage Addis Ababa Crowd-Sourced Photo Archive

Overview

Vintage Addis Ababa is a documentary and fine art project launched in July 2017 that operates as a crowd-sourced visual archive. It gathers old photographs from the private collections of Ethiopians — primarily those living in Addis Ababa but also from the diaspora — to document and preserve the everyday lives of ordinary people in the Ethiopian capital across the 20th century.

History and Founding

The project was founded in July 2017 by Philipp Schütz, Wongel Abebe, and Nafkot Gebeyehu, all based in Addis Ababa. Schütz, a Swiss graphic designer and photographer, was inspired in part by the work of Dutch photographer Andrea Stultiens preserving Ugandan photo archives. Abebe and Gebeyehu are both graduates of the Addis Ababa University School of Journalism and Communications. The project was initially developed in collaboration with Ayaana Media + Publishing. A Kickstarter campaign funded the publication of a photography book containing 242 photographs, printed in Germany.

Collections and Holdings

The archive collects photographs primarily from the 1940s through the 1980s, mostly taken by local Ethiopian photographers — both professional and amateur — in photo studios and at social occasions such as weddings, birthdays, and graduations. Most photographs in the collection were taken by Ethiopians themselves, offering an intimate internal perspective distinct from images by foreign photographers. The project publishes one photograph per day on its website. Photographs are professionally scanned for preservation and digital distribution.

Journalism and Media Significance

Vintage Addis Ababa has received coverage in international media, including Quartz Africa and Africa Is a Country. The project's co-founders, including Wongel Abebe and Nafkot Gebeyehu, bring professional journalism and communications backgrounds to the archive's storytelling approach.

Access and Usage

The archive is accessible online at vintageaddis.com. Submissions of old photographs are welcomed from the public. The project maintains an active presence on Instagram and Facebook, where it has built a following of tens of thousands.