NARRATOR: Contemporary Ethiopian-American artist Tsedaye Makonnen draws on themes of memory and migration in her lightbox sculptures. In the Byzantine world, North Africans traveled across trade and pilgrimage routes. Today, in this space, Makonnen’s light-filled totems activate our awareness of forced migration and tragic deaths that continue today.

Each box is named after a self-identifying Black woman or girl who died from state-sanctioned violence in the United States, or while attempting to migrate to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea. Here's Tsedaye Makonnen.

TSEDAYE MAKONNEN: It is dedicated and honoring Black women, Black femmes, Black trans and gender non-binary folks, children, just those of us who oftentimes are either discarded or our lives are just not held with as much care as anyone else’s.

I want it to be arresting, where you walk into the space and automatically feel at peace. I want it to force people to look up and think about how short our lives are and how silly it is that we waste it on being hateful, whether it is to ourselves or towards other people, and really kind of considering how connected we all are through this work.

NARRATOR: The symbols lasered onto the boxes are Coptic crosses, which come in a wide variety of forms. They are worn in Ethiopia and Eritrea as a kind of 'evil eye' amulet to ward against harm.

MAKONNEN: I've always been fascinated specifically by Coptic Orthodox designs and crosses. I do really believe that they have alchemy about them that is really powerful and has the power to protect and heal. And really I think that's my main goal—how do I support these marginalized groups, but how do I also provide this sanctuary that can migrate across borders, across air, land, sky?