Yatreda (ያጥሬዳ) is a family collective of artists from Ethiopia, led by creative director Kiya Tadele. Rooted in tizita—a profound sense of nostalgia and longing for the past—their practice weaves childhood memories, oral histories, and folk tales with the rich heritage and legends that shape contemporary Ethiopian identity. By bridging ancestral knowledge and digital innovation, Yatreda invites viewers to contemplate the cyclical nature of history, ensuring that Ethiopia’s cultural legacy is both celebrated in the present and safeguarded for the future.

Yatreda (ያጥሬዳ)

Yatreda is known for their black-and-white short loops, in which people move very slightly, creating the impression that a photograph has come to life. Many of their motion portraits feature historical costumes and jewellery, either sourced from antique shops or sewn by members of the collective, and are grounded in research. The work Abyssinian Queen, a re-enactment of a countryside folktale about a queen, carried by her people, was presented in Ethiopia at the Crossroads exhibition and now belongs to the Toledo Museum of Art’s collection.

Yatreda’s two standout series are rooted in the rich diversity of traditions found across Ethiopia: Movement of the Ancsestors captures the essence of various regional dances; Strong Hair documents traditional hairstyles, honouring the labour and artistry embedded in hair culture. Strong Hair received the Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica (2022) and was later exhibited at Museum Folkwang (Essen, Germany). 

Although much of Yatreda’s practice revolves around short looping videos, The coffee you drink while running will disappear marks a clear departure — featuring a notably large ensemble of participants.

Still from The coffee you drink while running will disappear (ሲሮጡ የጠጡት ቡና ሲሮጡ ይጠፋል), 2025

Rooted in the proverb “The coffee you drink while running will disappear” (ሲሮጡ የጠጡት ቡና ሲሮጡ ይጠፋል), the video points to the flaws in the contemporary temporal regime. Within Western culture, time has become a currency: something to optimise, monetise, and measure. It is better to be spent wisely; it is not to be wasted. Coffee, once a reason to take a pause or meet, has become its opposite—a stimulant that keeps the world spinning faster, a tool to survive the speed it helped create.

In response to this unsustainable acceleration, Western culture has borrowed rituals of slowness from elsewhere, often stripping them of their original spiritual and communal dimensions to fit within the same saturated timelines they were meant to oppose.  Drawing on Ethiopia's ancient ritual, The coffee you drink while running will disappear proposes a different relationship to time. It is a manual of presence and slowing down, but not in the self-care sense that the West has commercialised to death—it is an infrastructure of time that resists commodification. Shot in a single take, it restores continuity to temporality, rejecting the fractured timelines that define contemporary life. Time in the work is whole and embodied, its completeness achieved through collective rhythm, movement, and relation. 

An Ethiopian coffee ceremony, one of the country’s most significant cultural traditions, transforms the act of drinking coffee into a gesture of hospitality, connection, and respect. The ritual begins with green beans washed and roasted over charcoal in a flat pan called biret-mitad, their aroma filling the room. The beans are ground by hand with a mortar and pestle and brewed in a clay jebena—a vessel with a round base, long neck, and spout, its design varying slightly by region. The host, traditionally a woman dressed in a white cotton gown, pours the coffee from a height into small, handleless cups (cini). 

Making of The coffee you drink while running will disappear (ሲሮጡ የጠጡት ቡና ሲሮጡ ይጠፋል)

In the video, the Coffee Muse leads the ceremony, and a musician plays the masenqo—a one-stringed instrument associated with storytelling—filling the space with nostalgic melodies that suspend time. As the ceremony unfolds, incense thickens the air, creating an invisible connection between material and spiritual worlds. The inclusion of Tena’Adam (“Health for Adam”) invokes a belief in protection and spiritual cleansing, while fresh grass scattered across the floor symbolises fertility and renewal.

The work culminates in a collective eruption of joy: participants rise to dance, joined by the musician and the Coffee Muse herself, whose formal roles dissolve into spontaneous expression. In this act, The coffee you drink while running will disappear proposes an epistemology of radical togetherness. In contrast to the Western ideal of self-mastery through introspection, it advances an understanding of wisdom as movement, knowledge as shared rhythm, and presence as relational rather than solitary.