Zoma Museum
Photo: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Zoma Museum is an environmentally conscious art institution in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, focusing on sustainable art and architecture. It features a gallery, library, children’s center, edible garden, and an amphitheater.
Planning your visit
Zoma was built from mud. Elias Sime, an artist, and Meskerem Assegued, a curator, made a museum in Addis Ababa using traditional Ethiopian construction — straw-reinforced earth walls, hand-modelled and incised with patterns — as an argument that vernacular building is both more beautiful and more appropriate than the concrete going up around it.
The result is a compound of curved earthen structures holding a gallery, a library, a children's centre and an amphitheatre, set among an edible garden and planting that is part of the work rather than decoration around it.
Sime's own practice, assembling electronic waste into large-scale works, has been shown internationally.
Residencies, education programmes and an environmental teaching remit run alongside the exhibitions.
The whole site is the artwork, which is why guided tours cover architecture as much as art.
Allow ninety minutes. Current availability is shown below.
Before you book
Where is Zoma Museum?
Zoma Museum is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The map on this page marks its exact location.
How long should I allow for Zoma Museum?
Allow ninety minutes. That is the time the collection itself takes at an unhurried pace, before any queue.
Do I need to book Zoma Museum in advance?
Guided tours run to a fixed schedule and small group sizes, so they are usually booked ahead.
