A native of Ethiopia, Betelhem Makonnen is an artist, curator and educator living in Austin, Texas, whose practice investigates the perennial questions of existence through a continual blending of anthropological, philosophic, and historical inquiries—both personal and collective. She holds an MFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in History and Literature of Africa/African Diaspora from UT Austin.
Through her work in photography, video, installation, public art and text, she explores the relationship between elements usually perceived as contradictory, using as a platform her own personal experiences in constant dialogue with the findings of her daily practice of observation, reading and wandering. Her works translate perception, presence, and place by connecting embedded memory and present-day experience through her diasporic consciousness that maps relationships beyond spatial and temporal boundaries. With unfixed and many-ed points of departure, she uses (re)search, (re)configurations, and (re)combinations to make works that take form in the in-between spaces of paradoxes, feedback loops and sites of connection. Her practice seeks to contribute to an unlearning that brings othered planes of perception into view—questioning what we think we already know, disrupting the rote programming we repeat without difference, re-imagining fixed ways of seeing towards a moveable lens of perception.
Makonnen exhibits nationally and internationally including The Contemporary Austin, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Le Musée des Abattoirs, the Visual Arts Center at the UT Austin, Artpace, Women & Their Work, The Carver Museum, Centro Cultural do Brasil RJ, and A Gentil Carioca Gallery. Her performances and screenings have been presented at The Blanton Museum, The Museum of Human Achievement, ART X Lagos, DakArt Off Senegal and Casa Daros. Her work has been featured in publications including Artforum, The New York Times, Frieze, Hyperallergic, Zoetrope, O Menelick 2º Ato, Revista Lampejo, and Glasstire. In addition to her practice, she serves as part-time faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), co-organizes Addis Video Art Festival, a platform for video art in Ethiopia, and is a co-founder member of the Austin-based arts collective Black Mountain Project.
Photo by Moyo Oyelola