FABRIKKEN AIR: MISS AND HIT – an exhibition by Wendimagegn Belete

18. marts 2025

Residency Exhibition:  27.-28. March 2025
Opening: Thursday 27. March 14 – 17:30 w. introduction by the artist at 14:15
Friday 28. March 10 – 15

FABRIKKEN for Kunst og Design, Sundholmsvej 46, 2300 Copenhagen S.
Entrance through the back of FABRIKKEN.
The exhibition and opening is free to attend and open for all.

Photos by Wendimagegn Belete

The exhibition Miss and Hit is the culmination of Wendimagegn Belete’s residency at FABRIKKEN for Kunst og Design.

Through a series of clay sculptures, the exhibition presents a bold and evocative exploration of destruction, resilience, and transformation. Drawing inspiration from a ceramic tradition, the artworks attempt to integrate intuitive hand-building techniques with a radical process—wet clay forms are shot from a distance using a hunting gun, creating unpredictable ruptures that become integral to the final pieces. Fired at high temperatures, the sculptures retain the marks of impact, embodying a dialogue between creation and destruction.

Engaging with themes of memory, colonial histories, and the fragility of cultural heritage, MISS AND HIT reflects on the violence inflicted upon both people and land while also emphasizing endurance and regeneration. 

Clay, an ancient medium with utilitarian, social, commemorative, and spiritual significance, serves as a bridge between past and present. In traditional African pottery, the rhythms of hand-building are not just aesthetic choices but hold encoded knowledge—stories of lineage, survival, and belief. Clay has been used across generations for spiritual and ritual activity, healing, medical treatments, and house-making, embodying resilience, adaptability, and a deep connection to the land. By shaping and then shooting these ceramic forms with a real gun, the artwork introduces a rupture, a moment of violent intervention that challenges how histories are preserved, altered, or erased. This act is not purely destructive; rather, it underscores the fragility of heritage and identity, as well as their capacity for resilience and transformation.

The exhibition marks the culmination of Wendimagegn Belete’s three-month residency as part of the FABRIKKEN Air residency programme – A research programme that welcomes visual artists based in the Nordic and Baltic countries in three-months residencies. During his residency, Belete has received curatorial support by curator Irene Campolmi, and active peer-to-peer mentoring by artist Javier Tapia.

Wendimagegn Belete (b. 1986, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) lives and works between Addis Ababa and Oslo. He completed his bachelor’s degree in fine arts at the AAU Alle School of Fine Arts and Design, Ethiopia, in 2012. In 2017, he earned an MA in Contemporary Art from the Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art and Creative Writing in Norway.

The FABRIKKEN AIR residency programme is supported by Nordic Culture Point, Det Obelske Familiefond and The Danish Arts Foundation.