Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Nefsé Nets’a Mawt’at Däbtäras ነፍስን : ነፃ : ማውጣት :: ደብተራ :: The Soul Is Set Free Magic Scrolls I–V
Tsedaye Makonnen Ethiopian-American
Not on view
The Soul Is Set Free series, comprising lino block prints on Ethiopian scarves (netelas), derives from the artist’s meditations on how to protect Black people crossing borders or doing something as mundane as stepping outside. Each scarf is an imaginative womb that, when worn, encases one’s body in a protective egg.
The scarves, mimicking magic scrolls, carry their own migratory imprints. The Amharic characters hand-printed on the textiles are a series of poetic prayers the artist wrote after reading accounts of the violence against Black people migrating to Europe from Africa. In this latest iteration, Makonnen has included her immigrant mother’s translations, correcting her misspelled and mispronounced Amharic prayers. The artist’s process of composing, copying, translating, and correcting prayers mirrors similar artistic and scribal practices that have thrived in northern and eastern Africa for millennia.
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