Tsedaye Makonnen

Tsedaye Makonnen’s name is likely familiar to visitors of the Walters. The interdisciplinary artist served as the guest curator for contemporary art in the museum’s award-winning 2023 exhibition Ethiopia at the Crossroads, and five of her mirrored light tower sculptures were on view at the Walters from 2023 to 2024. Now, Sacred :: የተቀደሰ :: Yetekedse (2025), a new pair of light towers commissioned by the Walters and fabricated by nonprofit makerspace Open Works, are on view in the medieval galleries alongside the Ethiopian processional crosses that the work references.

Makonnen’s sculptures form a large-scale installation, each sculpture representing an obelisk, a totemic shrine, or a sanctuary. The Ethiopian designs and crosses (mäsqäl) on these towers are based on processional and hand crosses in the Walters collection, most of which are on view next to Makonnen’s work.

Through these serene and reverent light towers, Makonnen seeks to memorialize late Baltimoreans and beyond, among them, Danika “Danny” Henson, Bailey Reeves, Korryn Gaines, Freddie Gray, Sonya Massey, the Latino/a/e individuals who died from the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, Jacqueline Copeland, Mary Elizabeth Lange, Elizabeth Talford Scott, Etalem (እታለም – Sister of the World), Nikki Giovanni, Lorraine O’Grady, Faith Ringgold, and “children around the world who are being targeted by state sanctioned violence,” said the artist.