Tsedaye Makonnen on Collaboration and Black Performance Practices

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

12:00 PM–1:00 PM

Virtual

The Research and Academic Program presents “On Living Archives”: Tsedaye Makonnen on Collaboration and Black Performance Practices.

In this episode of the Research and Academic Program (RAP) podcast In the Foreground: Conversations on Art & Writing, Caitlin Woolsey (assistant director of RAP) speaks with artist and curator Tsedaye Makonnen about her multidisciplinary studio, curatorial, and research-based practice. They discuss how Tsedaye’s sculptural installations and performances thread together her identity as a daughter of Ethiopian immigrants and a Black American woman to explore the transhistorical forced migration of Black communities across the globe.

Tsedaye Makonnen is a multidisciplinary artist whose studio, curatorial, and research-based practice are envisioned as intimate and protective sanctuaries for Black lives. The current recipient of a permanent large-scale public art commission for the city of Providence in Rhode Island, Tsedaye is also preparing an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for fall 2023. She performed at the 2022 Venice Biennale for Simone Leigh’s Loophole Retreat, and has performed previously at the Venice Biennale, Art Basel Miami, Chale Wote in Ghana, El Museo del Barrio,  Fendika in Ethiopia, FIAP in Martinique, Queens Museum, the Smithsonian institutions in Washington, D.C., among others. In 2019, Tsedaye was a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, and in fall 2022 she was in residence at the Clark as Futures Fellow. She is represented by Addis Fine Art, and lives between Washington, D.C., and London. 

This episode launches on Tuesday, April 18. For more information and to listen to the episode, check clarkart.edu/rap/podcast, iTunes, Spotify, and anywhere else you may listen to podcasts.

Image: Tsedaye Makonnen, The Astral Sea I, 2019. Blue satin/sheer fabric, acrylic mirror, adhesive. 17 ft x 11 in x 3 ft 7 in. Photo: Siren Arts Residency

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