Photo By Wendimagen Belete
Yohannes Mulat Mekonnen (b. 1992) is a Visual Anthropology Fellow at the Global Heritage Lab, University of Bonn, and a Gerda Henkel Research Fellow at the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne. He works at the intersection of visual anthropology and contemporary art. The central theme in Mekonnen’s work is the ethical and political dimensions of representation, with particular attention to the asymmetrical relations produced through representational practices. Drawing on his background in multidisciplinary artistic practice and visual anthropology, Mekonnen approaches representation both as a narrative practice and an analytical method, combining ethnographic research with the methodological possibilities of contemporary art.
In 2026, he is Assistant Curator of the Ethiopian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and curates We Are What We Are Not at the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne. He also serves as a jury member for the German International Ethnographic Film Festival 2026 in Göttingen. His essay “Writing Against Certainty” is forthcoming in a Routledge volume on slow scholarship.
Contact
Visual Anthropology Fellow, Global Heritage Lab
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Contact: yohannes@uni-bonn.de
Curatorial Research Fellow, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Köln
Contact: yohannes.mekonnen@stadt-koeln.de
Artistic Research and Film Studio
Hafenweg 28, Speicher II, 1.5 48155, Münster
Contact: yohannesmkn@gmail.com | +49 1766 3418272