Artists Imagine New Monuments and “Otherwise Worlds”

[...] In Building a Better Monument, nine artists remind us of the work that anti-racist monuments and movements must do: memorialize the fallen, while stoking the righteous anger needed for transformation. Tsedaye Makonnen's Astral Sea interventions deploy the artist's body as a witness to the long durée of the Black Atlantic and the ongoing refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. Among her works featured, "When Drowning is the Best Option" - a short video excerpt of her pointed exchange with the security guards at the 2019 Venice Biennale - critically probes what deserves to be protected: "art" or Black lives. [...]