
Grada Kilomba. © Courtesy Goodman Gallery.
Grada Kilomba
Born in 1968
Lives & works in Lisbon, Portugal and Berlin, Germany
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Degree on Clinical Psychology and Psychoanalysis, Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisbon, Portugal - 1998
Ph.D., Doctorate on Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany - 2008
Awarded by Frameworks at the international film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands - 2018
Artist-in-Residence, Vila Sul, at the Goethe Institut Salvador da Bahia, Brazil - 2016
Artist-in-Residence, Revolting Mass/Massa Revoltante, at the Goethe Institut São Paulo, Brazil - 2016
Named a “Woman of Excellence” by the Sonne Magazine, Berlin, Germany - 2015
Awarded as one of “The Most Inspirational Black Women in Europe” by the BWIE, Vienna, Austria - 2011
Presentation of the artist
Grada Kilomba (b. 1968, Lisbon, Portugal) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer born in Lisbon and living in Berlin. Kilomba’s work draws on the repressed history of colonialism and its legacy on memory, trauma, race, gender, and knowledge production: ‘who can speak?’ ‘what can we speak about?’ and ‘ What happens when we speak?’ are three constant questions in Kilomba ’s body of work.
Kilomba is best known for her subversive writing and her unconventional use of artistic practices, in which she gives body, voice and image to her own text, using a variety of formats such as Staged Reading, Performance, and Video Installation. In her work, Kilomba intentionally creates a hybrid space between the academic and the artistic languages, and uses storytelling as a central element for her decolonial practices.
Kilomba‘s work has been described to have the powerful beauty of touching ‘the colonial wound’ with a surgical precision, ’bringing a new, experimental and compelling voice to contemporary art and discourse’ (ARTE Brasileiros 2016). She decolonises by subverting content, undoing standard practices and inventing new methods and places of expression. Kilomba entered the contemporary art world, in 2016, when she was invited and commissioned to develop a artwork for the 32. Bienal de São Paulo. Kilomba’s work has been presented internationally, including: 10. Berlin Biennale; Documenta 14, Kassel; 32. Bienal de São Paulo; Rauma Biennale Balticum; The Power Plant, Toronto; MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; Galeria Avenida da Índia, Lisbon; WdW Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Secession Museum, Vienna; Bozar Museum,Brussels; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin; Maxim Gorki Theatre, Berlin, among others. Her written work has been published in numerous international anthologies and translated into several languages. She is the author of Plantation Memories (2008) a compilation of episodes of everyday racism written in the form of short psychoanalytical stories, and released at the International Literature Festival, Berlin. And the coeditor of Mythen, Subjekt und Masken (2008), a pioneer anthology on Critical Whiteness.
Nationality : Portugal
In connection with
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg - South Africa
CV
Born in Lisbon, Portugal
Solo exhibitions & presentations
2019
Grada Kilomba: Poetic Disobediences,Pinacoteca, São Paulo
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2019
Grada Kilomba: A World of Illusions, Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Sweden
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2018
Secrets to Tell, The Power Plant, Toronto
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2018
Speaking the Unspeakable, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
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2018
Secrets to Tell, MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, Portugal
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2018
The Most Beautiful Language, Avenida da Índia Gallery, at the Municipal Galleries of Lisbon, Portugal
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2017
The Most Beautiful Language, Avenida da Índia Gallery, at the Municipal Galleries of Lisbon, Portugal
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2017
The Most Beautiful Language,Gallery
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2017
Performance - Documenta 14, Kassel, Germany
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2017
Performance - SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
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2017
Performance - Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
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2016
32. Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
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2016
Performance - Teatro Vila Velha, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
CV
Publications & essays
2008
Plantation Memories. Episodes of Everyday Racism(5th Edition), Münster: Unrast Verlag
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2005
Mythen, Subjekt, Masken (3rd Edition), Münster: Unrast Verlag (co-editor)