Yatreda is a family art collective from Ethiopia, founded and led by creative director Kiya Tadele, that stages costumed portraits of historical and mythological Ethiopian figures in the family's own front yard.,Combining photography, video and blockchain technology, the collective works to preserve and animate Ethiopian cultural memory.
Tadele grew up in the Ethiopian countryside before moving to Addis Ababa, where she modeled for seven years and then moved behind the camera, working in lighting and editing for photographers and documentarians across the country. Yatreda was the first project on which she took full creative leadership.The collective's name comes from an Amharic childhood nickname tied to a fortune-teller's prediction about Tadele, and came to also describe the curious neighbors and construction workers who would watch historical figures in costume being shot in the family's yard.
Andromeda of Aethiopia (2022) remaps the Greek myth of Andromeda through an Ethiopian lens, casting Tadele's own sister in the title role and working, in her words, “as if no other modern visuals contaminated my mind”.Strong Hair ጠንካራ ፀጉር pays tribute to African culture through twenty-one distinct hairstyles and was shown at Paris Photo in 2023.The same year the collective released Adam and Hewan, thirteen video-loop works reinterpreting the Adam and Eve creation story, following its earlier series Movement of the Ancestors and Kingdoms of Ethiopia.
Abyssinian Queen entered the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art entirely on-chain, with its provenance kept on the blockchain while the digital file is displayed to museum visitors on a high-resolution screen.,Yatreda has been represented by Nguyen Wahed Gallery at Paris Photo's Digital Sector and by Plan X at Art Dubai, where the collective documented the Sedea dance and Zewed ritual battle.,In December 2025 Twenty-First Century Akodama, a digital rendering of a traditional Ethiopian chieftain's crown paired with a sterling silver sculpture by Asprey Studio, was shown in the Zero 10 section at Art Basel Miami Beach.
