ELSabet creates immersive art focused on the ​(hyper)subjective as a means to gather focused attention on ​the body and the ways in which the body stores and ​manifests emotions. She focuses much of her attention on ​the ways in which we as people navigate these emotions as ​interrelated beings and the struggles coming from these ​interrelations.

A/my/our lover(s) 2024

ELizabeth Zerihun, a.k.a ELSabet, ELsabet, and/or Elsabet, is an ​Ethiopian-American artist-provocateur and social scientist. She ​primarily uses film, the written word, artistic research, mixed-​technologies, and performance art as her central mediums for ​expression.

Born to two Ethiopian immigrants, she has reflected upon and ​explored the idea of “otherness” within our predominating socio-​communal scripts. Meaning she understands that nothing is acultural ​and that behaviors can be linked to social customs, so they can ​therefore be researched and compassionately analyzed. Interrelated ​self-construction fascinates her, and its compilation of elements, ​namely gender, race, space, and the unconscious. Delving into the ​subconscious, and its relationship to external ((in)visibly imposed) ​social structures are themes that she continually investigates ​artistically. Space(making) as an enactor on, precursor to, and co-​former of the self fascinates her; socio-communal emotional ​exploration now has her attention.

She graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in ​Radio/Television/Film and African-American Studies, and a Creative ​Writing for the Media certification which has helped foundationalize ​her practice with artistic research. She engages the filmmaking world ​from the lens of writer first, then director, and both of these positions ​are always-already infused with her personal identities—though not ​acting exclusionary, she actively and intentionally chooses to ​foreground the safety, comfort, and stories of BIPOC—with special ​focus towards queer Black women.

ELsabet’s educational journey has ​equipped her with a deep understanding ​of the nuances of story and character as ​well as a strong understanding of the ​western world’s social strata. Her ​education has led her to marry her ​interests in art and research as she ​continues to pursue study within the ​fields or affective theory, sociology, ​embodiment studies. and the arts of the ​Global South. Art that subverts norms, ​engages audiences, and allows for and ​invites embodiment She has become ​taken with the transgressive artists works ​of Lispector, Glissant, Lourde, and ​Basquiat among many others.

Body of work

2021

Shadows of a Nearby Suburb (S.o.S)

A silent portrait of my neighborhood set against a ​poem reflecting upon personal pains revolving ​around upbringing, parentage, emotional safety, ​visibility, and ideas of home.

2022

Behind The Scenes Of

A sketch that plays on the mockumentary format ​highlighting the conflicts that play out behind the ​scenes during the collaborative creative/crafting ​process while also amplifying different parts of ​myself as represented as characters within the ​sketch.

2024

UnEarthing

A visual exploration of the feeling/experience of madness contextualized by the grounding exercises that can themselves be read as expressions of madness with the addition of hypertext from Ways of Seeing and How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind.

2021

Dis-Embodied Identifications

A self-portrait series delving into the embodied ​experience of dissociation and the implications ​of witnessing the self outside of oneself.

2021

Pseudostillness

A photo series taken on the grounds of a local ​botanical gardens in Tennessee that began ​construction in 1929. The curated beauty of the ​space feels sickly when you acknowledge the ​fact that those who built the gardens were ​underpaid if paid at all and without human ​rights.

2023

Nowstalgia Consumed

A photo-series mapping out how to make a dish ​in my culture called Misir. I chronicle an ​education/bonding with my mom as we talk ​about food and nourishment which culminates in ​us eating together. The paper towel serves as a ​multipurpose tool that (though typically invisible) ​is highlighted as a contextualizer in what some ​might call an invisible process or a mundane ​moment (i.e. cooking with my mom) as I use it ​as backdrop.