Join the 2021 Sondheim Artscape Prize Finalist Tsedaye Makonnen in conversation with Dany Chan, co-curator of the Sondheim Artscape Prize exhibition and Assistant Curator of Asian Art at the Walters. For five programs through the months of May to July, each artist finalist will be featured in a program exploring the artist’s individual journey as a creative, their evolving voice, and what the opportunity of the Sondheim Prize and its visibility means to their art practice.

The 2021 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize Finalists are Jonathan Monaghan, Lavar Munroe, Hoesy Corona, Tsedaye Makonnen, and Hae Won Sohn. The prestigious $25,000 Sondheim Prize is awarded to assist in furthering the career of a visual artist or visual artist collaborators living and working in the Greater Baltimore region. The Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize exhibition is on view at the Walters Art Museum from Thursday, May 27, through Sunday, July 18, 2021.

About the Artist

Tsedaye Makonnen is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, researcher, and cultural producer, whose studio practice threads together her identity as a Black mother, birthworker, and a daughter of Ethiopian immigrants. Makonnen primarily focuses on migration and intersectional feminism, using light, shadow, reflection, fractals, embodiment, movement, and collaboration as materials.  Her intention is to create a spiritual network around the globe that aims to recalibrate the energy towards something positive and life affirming. Makonnen is the recipient of a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. She has performed at the Venice Biennale, Art Basel Miami, Art on the Vine (Martha’s Vineyard), Chale Wote Street Art Festival (Ghana), El Museo del Barrio, Fendika Cultural Center (Ethiopia), Festival International d’Art Performance (Martinique), Queens Museum, the Smithsonian’s, and more. Her light sculptures have been exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, and UNTITLED Art Fair. She has been featured in the New York Times, Vogue, BOMB, Hyperallergic, Artnet, Artsy, and more. Her recent exhibitions include 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, Park Avenue Armory, National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Momentary and Art Dubai. This spring she is publishing a curatorial book with Washington Project for the Arts, and this fall she will join the Clark Art Institute as their inaugural Futures Fellow. Makonnen is represented by Addis Fine Art and currently lives in DC with her 10-year-old son.

The 16th annual Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize is produced by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts in partnership with the Walters Art Museum.