Lekiso-bet | ለቅሶ ቤት
2016 - 2017
Oslo, Norway

This work emerges from a moment of collective rupture, on April 19, 2015, when a deeply disturbing propaganda video was released on social media. The footage shows the execution of two groups of Ethiopian migrants in Libya. These individuals were seeking safety and a better life elsewhere, but their dreams ended in the desert and by the sea. In response to the collective grief following the incident, Berhane examined the significance of social frameworks like Lekiso-bet as a means of engaging with stories of migration from East Africa.

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Lekiso-bet is a social framework meaning “house of lamentation.” It is a communal space of mourning, where grief is performed, witnessed, and held collectively. Drawing from this tradition, Berhane’s work investigates social engagement as an art practice, the notion of ephemerality, and the relationships between society, public space, and displacement. The tent house (Lekiso-bet) is a recurring architectural and conceptual motif that serves as both a physical and symbolic structure: impermanent yet grounded. It functions as a site of remembrance, storytelling, and social gathering, echoing indigenous informal social systems that foster collective responsibility and mutual care.

Developed as part of Berhane's master's research at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, the final installation reflects on various experiences of sorrow, a psychological sense of unity, and a broader relationship with temporal space, like a tent situated in different social and cultural contexts. It is a gesture toward a different kind of monument within a contemporary art context. The work aims to monumentalize those unknown numbers of lost human lives trying to cross international borders by small boats, for those left behind, and for those still in motion.