The Legacy of a Man

This one is very personal.

The Legacy of a Man is a love letter from Studio 11’s co-founder, Nafkot Gebeyehu, to her father Gebeyehu Ayele, once a celebrated Ethiopian writer, now slowly slipping into the quiet fog of dementia. Over the past four years, she documented him in his gentlest moments: sipping tea, gazing out the window, walking slowly through their home garden. Ordinary gestures. But when memory begins to fade, the ordinary becomes sacred.

Photography became her anchor. Her way of holding on. Each frame in this collection carries the weight of memory, his tenderness his resilience, his presence. As his words faded, Nafkot found a new language in light and shadow. These images are an attempt to preserve what remains, and to share a grief and love that many of us know too well.

Opening this exhibition at Studio 11 has been more than an artistic milestone for Nafkot; it has been a profoundly healing experience. Visitors arrived expecting to witness someone else’s story but many left thinking about their own. They lingered in front of the photographs, tears quietly welling up, memories of their own parents, grandparents, loved ones surfacing. The unspoken became shared. One of the final texts on the gallery wall reads: “Take your camera. Or your phone. Capture your loved ones now, as they are. Not perfect. Just real.”

This exhibition isn’t just about Nafkot’s father. It’s about all of us. It’s about time, memory, love and the ache of watching someone you cherish slowly slip away. It’s about the desperate, beautiful act of trying to hold on.

We are deeply grateful to Afro Coffee for supporting this project and helping us share this story tender, universal, and profoundly human with the world.