A powerful exhibition honoured Black lives and explored sisterhood, resilience, and spiritual legacy through light-filled sculpture.
Photo by Brad Simpson, 2024. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The National Museum of African Art opened ‘Tsedaye Makonnen — Sanctuary’ on December 13, 2024, presenting a deeply moving and visually striking exhibition by Washington, D.C.-based Ethiopian American artist Tsedaye Makonnen.
At the exhibition’s core were seven towering light sculptures, each composed of 50 illuminated boxes named for individuals lost to violence. The installation transformed grief into a space of remembrance, love, and hope—offering comfort and solidarity to those most impacted by systemic injustice. “I am interested in representing voices that are among the most vulnerable,” Makonnen said.
The exhibition aligned with the museum’s mission to promote cross-cultural understanding. “Community engagement is a core element of our museum,” said John K. Lapiana, director of the National Museum of African Art. “Tsedaye’s exhibition spoke to these longstanding values.”
The exhibition’s opening carried personal and professional significance for Heran Sereke-Brhan, the museum’s newly appointed deputy director. “As an Ethiopian-born woman and longtime champion of DC artists, it was deeply meaningful that this exhibition coincided with the start of my tenure,” she said. “Having Tsedaye’s work exhibited at the Smithsonian powerfully centered stories of oppression and resilience, while countering underrepresentation in the arts.”
Makonnen conceived the central installation, ‘Senait & Nahom: The Peacemaker & The Comforter’, while serving as a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow at the museum. The sculptures were placed in dialogue with works from the museum’s permanent collection, including Ethiopian Coptic crosses and artworks by Alexander “Skunder” Boghossian and Aïda Muluneh. These juxtapositions revealed enduring themes of motherhood, comfort, and spiritual power across time and place.
Tsedaye Makonnen is an interdisciplinary artist grounded in Black feminist theory, ethical and social practice, and site-specific research. Her practice spans performance, installation, sculpture, and film, often addressing themes of intersectional feminism, reproductive justice, and migration.
Makonnen is a mother, doula, and daughter of Ethiopian immigrants—identities that inform her work as a sanctuary builder. In 2021, the National Museum of African Art acquired her light sculptures for its permanent collection. She has since exhibited widely at the Venice Biennale, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Walters Art Museum, where she curated contemporary works.
She is developing a permanent public art commission for Providence, Rhode Island, to be unveiled in 2025. She also leads an oral history project on Ethiopian communities in Washington, D.C., and continues a cross-institutional collaboration with the Clark Art Institute and Williams College. Makonnen lives with her partner and children between Washington, D.C., and London.
For more information, please visit the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art.
