Big Medium is pleased to present the third annual Tito’s Prize exhibition featuring winner Betelhem Makonnen. The prize comes courtesy of a donation from Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and includes a $15,000 award and a solo exhibition in the Big Medium Gallery.
Working with a variety of mediums that include video, photography, and installations, Betelhem Makonnen researches questions on perception, presence, and place within a trans‑temporal and trans-locative topology that operates on the relational dynamics of a diasporic consciousness.
A native of Ethiopia (b. 1972), Betelhem Makonnen currently lives and works in Austin, Texas. Her formal education is comprised of an MFA (2019) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as a New Artists Society Merit Scholar; graduate coursework in Painting, Time‑based media, and Modern and Contemporary Art History (2010 – 2013) at the School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage (EAV), Rio de Janeiro; and a BA (1995), History and Literature of the African Diaspora from University of Texas in Austin.
In addition to her artistic praxis, she is also a co-founder of the Austin-based contemporary arts collaborative Black Mountain Project. She is also a curator at Fusebox Festival, an annual art and contemporary performance arts festival, and co-editor of the online arts periodical Written & Spoken.