TSEDAYE MAKONNEN
"The Amharic characters hand-printed on the textiles are a series of poetic prayers that I wrote after reading accounts of the violence against Black women migrating to Europe from Africa and thinking about the fragility of Black lives here in the U.S. Early anti-African and anti-Black colonial structures, as well as the practice in Islamic contexts of thirteen centuries of trafficking and enslaving African women, continue to have political and economic reverberations that shape modern policy. One way I address this continuity is through process and art; another is through the use in my practice of my ancestral tongue. It allows me, as a first-generation Ethiopian American, to literally and metaphorically communicate with my hybrid kinship. This is my attempt to gather elements of language, memory, and ritual into my practice. Since I do not read or write Amharic and speak it loosely with a heavy American accent, my interpretation of the language and these protective sayings are intentionally not translated correctly. In doing so, I am exploring what gets lost in translation when culture migrates to a new world. The prayer in The Soul Is Set Free :: ነፍስን ነፃ ማውጣት reads as follows:
The one with a soul (still alive) :: ነፍስ አለው
Come back :: ተመልሰዉ
Be careful :: ተጥንቀቅ
Travel in peace :: በሰላም ተጓዝ
Be blessed :: ተባረክ
The soul is set free :: ነፍስን ነፃ ማውጣት
Textiles with the same screens were on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Africa & Byzantium.
Multi-generational texts include Makonnen, her mother and eldest son has translated the Amharic text into English in his own handwriting.
The One with a Soul 2024
Triptych | Each Sheet 30 x 22.25 inches | Screenprint | Edition of 10