Kidus Hailesilassie

Kidus Hailesilassie is an architect and speculative world builder whose practice intersects architecture and contemporary visual art. He focuses on hybrid forms of transcontinental expressions that reimagine and shape counter-narratives of Black consciousness.

Kidus Hailesilassie is the creator of the Culture Archive, a multidimensional platform for research, think tanks, and dialogues that recenter the writing tapestry from African and diasporic writing systems. His recent project, the Uncharted Installation, an extension of the Culture Archive, won 2023 PitchBLACK by Black Public Media. Uncharted challenges the current limitations of the concept and form of an archive by weaving together language and performance, incorporating transcontinental unions of Black movement and improvisation.

Through his creative process, which encompasses physical installation design, production design, video installation, interactive environments, and still imagery, Kidus's focal point is the concept of embodied architectural narratives. This approach underscores the ability of architecture to tell stories and convey meanings through its form, materials and spatial arrangements.

Since 2013, Kidus has collaborated with international artists and institutions such as Studio Other Spaces, Studio Olafur Eliasson, Forum des Images, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IFA), and Contemporary And (C&). He is a former M.A. EDGE fellow at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, SCI-Arc.