A series of eleven collages that merge paper, image, and lived texture. Six of the works are layered with roasted Ethiopian coffee from Moya itself and tea leaves brought from her homeland, Kenya—materials chosen not just for their tactility, but for their ability to carry memory, scent, and place into the gallery.

Each collage draws from two archives: photographs of Ethiopia before the 1930s and of Kenya in the 1960s, just after independence. JRSA distorts the faces—digitally and by hand—so that it becomes difficult for viewers to decide who is Ethiopian and who is Kenyan. In doing so, she challenges the reasoning behind such distinctions and exposes the assumptions that often lie beneath them.

For the first time, JRSA’s collages, which usually spill and creep across walls, appear in frames. Yet even here, they resist containment: edges break out, layers push forward, surfaces demand to be felt. This tension between enclosure and escape mirrors the deeper refusal at the heart of her work—the rejection of rigid borders and labels.

Who decided that two neighbouring nations must be imagined as fundamentally different? Who decided where the lines between them should begin and end? And who decided that people themselves can be boxed into fixed categories?

With Ethionya, JRSA presses these questions into tactile form, blurring the boundaries between nations, archives, and bodies. The works suggest another way of seeing—one where closeness matters more than separation, and where identity refuses to be confined to a frame.

Details:

1. “ One finger cannot kill a louse” - Paper, Wood, coffee and Tea - 43 x 37 cm

2. “The one with patience eats ripe fruit.” - Paper, Wood, coffee and Tea - 25 x 25 cm

3. “When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.” - Paper and Wood - 32 x 40 cm

4. “Only a fool looks for dung where the cattle doesn’t graze.” - Paper, Wood, Coffee and Tea - 46 x 54 cm

5. “Where a woman rules, streams run uphill.” - Paper, Wood and Watercolour - 39 x 45.5 cm

6. “He who runs alone cannot be outrun.” - Paper, Wood, Coffee and Tea - 28 x 21 cm

7. “At the harvest you know how good the millet is” - Paper, Wood, Coffee and Tea - 58 x 42 cm

8. “When the palm-wine tapper is praised, he waters down the brew.” - Paper and Wood - 48 x 36 cm

9. “The fool speaks, the wise man listens, and the farmer works.” - Paper, Wood, Coffee and Tea - 31 x 22.5 cm

10. “Talk is the asusa of a journey.” - Paper, Wood and Watercolour - 35 x 44 cm

11. “A boat doesn’t go forward if each one is rowing their own way.” - Paper, Wood, Coffee and Tea - 47 x 58 cm