Grada Kilomba

Last updated

"What knowledge is being acknowledged as such? And what knowledge is not? What knowledge has been made part of academic agendas? And what knowledge has not? Whose knowledge is this? Who is acknowledged to have the knowledge? And who is not? Who can teach knowledge? And who cannot? Who is at the centre? And who remains outside, at the margins?"

In 2013, Kilomba adapted Plantation Memories (2008) as a scenic reading at the Ballhaus Naunynstraße theatre in Berlin. [8] [9] The theatre wrote about her work: "With her book, Plantation Memories – Episodes of Everyday Racism, Grada Kilomba succeeds in revealing the consequences of racist violence and racist traumata through her concise and profound language." [10] One year later, the performance was shown at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele . "In her performances, Grada Kilomba brings the oral African tradition to a contemporary context, using texts, narration, images and video projections to recover the memories and realities of a postcolonial world." [11]

In recent works, Kilomba has increasingly been concerned with the performative staging of theoretical and political texts, including the film Conakry (2013) about the African freedom fighter Amílcar Cabral. [12] She has developed the short film with director Filipa César and radio editor and activist Diana McCarty. [13] Conakry was realized at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt ('House of World Cultures') in Berlin and shown at Art Tatler International, Kino Arsena at the Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art  [ de ] in Berlin and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian ('Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation') in Lisbon, among others. [14]

In an interview with Deutsche Welle , Kilomba stated with regard to contemporary racism: [4]

"We have to start posing other questions. So, it is not the question 'Am I racist or not?' but much more the question 'How do I dismantle my own racisms?' So, it is also not a moral question. It is really a question of responsibility. Racism is not about guilt and shame and denial. It is about taking responsibility."

Grada Kilomba during the presentation of Conakry (2013) Grada Kilomba(c)Conakry1.jpg
Grada Kilomba during the presentation of Conakry (2013)
Grada Kilomba in "Kosmos", at Gorki Theater (2016) Grada Kilomba in "Kosmos", at Gorki Theater (2016)Photo by Ute Langkafel.jpg
Grada Kilomba in "Kosmos", at Gorki Theater (2016)

Since 2015, Grada Kilomba has been developing the project "Decolonizing Knowledge: Performing Knowledge". Kampnagel writes about her lecture performance "Decolonizing Knowledge": "In her lecture performance, Grada Kilomba uncovers the violence of classical knowledge production and asks: What is recognized as knowledge? Whose knowledge is this? Who is allowed to produce knowledge at all? Kilomba touches this colonial wound by opening up a hybrid space in which the boundaries between academic and artistic language blur and the structures of knowledge and power transform." [14]

Decolonizing Knowledge was shown at the University of Amsterdam, the University of Linköping (Sweden) and the Vienna Secession, among others. The project is accompanied by experimental videos such as While I Write (2015), [15] in which Grada Kilomba explores the function of writing for postcolonial subjects. While I Write was premiered at the Vienna Secession in 2015. "Kilomba gives us a glimpse into our narcissistic society, which offers up little by way of symbols, images and vocabularies with which to deal with the present." [11]

Publications

Exhibitions

Films

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kara Walker</span> African American painter and installation artist

Kara Elizabeth Walker is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes. Walker was awarded a MacArthur fellowship in 1997, at the age of 28, becoming one of the youngest ever recipients of the award. She has been the Tepper Chair in Visual Arts at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University since 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isa Genzken</span> German contemporary artist (born 1948)

Isa Genzken is a German artist who lives and works in Berlin. Her primary media are sculpture and installation, using a wide variety of materials, including concrete, plaster, wood and textile. She also works with photography, video, film and collage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Bauermeister</span> German artist (1934–2023)

Mary Hildegard Ruth Bauermeister was a German artist who worked in sculpture, drawing, installation, performance, and music. Influenced by Fluxus artists and Nouveau Réalisme, her work addresses esoteric issues of how information is transferable through society. "I only followed an inner drive to express what was not yet there, in reality or thought", she said of her practice. "To make art was more a finding, searching process than a knowing." Beginning in the 1970s, her work concentrated on the themes surrounding New Age spirituality, specifically geomancy, the divine interpretation of lines on the ground.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ilse Bing</span> German photographer

Ilse Bing was a German avant-garde and commercial photographer who produced pioneering monochrome images during the inter-war era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queena Stovall</span> American painter

Queena Stovall was an American folk artist. Sometimes called "The Grandma Moses of Virginia," she is famous for depicting everyday events in the lives of both white and black families in rural settings.

Elvira Bach is a postmodernist German painter known for her colourful images of women. A member of the Junge Wilde art movement, she lives and works in Berlin. She is the mother of two children, including basketball player Maodo Lô.

KC Adams is a Cree, Ojibway, and British artist and educator based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ariella Azoulay</span> Artist

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay is an author, art curator, filmmaker, and theorist of photography and visual culture. She is a professor of Modern Culture and Media and the Department of Comparative Literature at Brown University and an independent curator of Archives and Exhibitions.

Hildegard Ochse was a German photographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrian Piper</span> American artist

Adrian Margaret Smith Piper is an American conceptual artist and Kantian philosopher. Her work addresses how and why those involved in more than one discipline may experience professional ostracism, otherness, racial passing, and racism by using various traditional and non-traditional media to provoke self-analysis. She uses reflection on her own career as an example.

Sutapa Biswas is a British Indian conceptual artist, who works across a range of media including painting, drawing, film and time-based media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pae White</span> American artist

Pae White is an American multimedia visual artist known for her unique portrayal of nature and mundane objects through her creations of suspended mobiles. She currently lives and works between Sonoma County and Los Angeles, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erika Stürmer-Alex</span> German artist (born 1938)

Erika Stürmer-Alex is a German artist whose works include wall paintings, panel paintings, printed graphics, collage sculptures, polyester sculptures and installations.

Kathrin Sonntag is a visual artist who works in photography, sculpture, film, and installations. Her work has been exhibited in museums including the Kunstverein in Hamburg, Germany and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evelyn Richter</span> German photographer (1930–2021)

Evelyn Richter was a German art photographer known primarily for social documentary photography work in East Germany. She is notable for her black & white photography in which she documented working-class life, and which often showed influences of Dadaism and futurism. Her photography is focused on people in everyday life, including children, workers, artists and musicians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather Igloliorte</span> Inuk art historian

Heather L. Igloliorte is an Inuk scholar, independent curator and art historian from Nunatsiavut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mónica de Miranda</span> Portuguese visual artist and researcher

Mónica de Miranda is a Portuguese visual artist, photographer, filmmaker, and researcher of Angolan ancestry known for her artwork on socially inspired themes, including postcolonial issues of geography, history, and subjectivity related to Africa and its diaspora. Her media include photography, mixed media and video. De Miranda first became known for her photographic records of the ruins of modern hotels in post-war Angola, and their surrounding sociopolitical circumstances. Her photographic series, videos, short films, and installations have been internationally exhibited at art biennales, galleries, and museums, some of which keep her work in their permanent art collections. Her work has been reviewed in specialized art sources.

Danica Dakić in Sarajevo) is a Bosnian artist and university professor. She works primarily with video art, installation and photography. Her works have been widely exhibited, including at documenta 12 (2007) and at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), where she represented Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dakić lives and works in Düsseldorf, Weimar, and Sarajevo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bénédicte Savoy</span> French art historian

Bénédicte Savoy is a French art historian, specialising in the critical enquiry of the provenance of works of art, including looted art and other forms of illegally acquired cultural objects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nell Walden</span> Swedish painter, art collector, and writer

Nelly Anna Charlotta Walden was a Swedish painter, art collector, and writer. A key figure in the activities of Berlin-based avant-garde magazine Der Sturm, Walden was a pioneer of abstract art and was married to German writer Herwarth Walden.

References

  1. 1 2 "Autorinformationen Grada Kilomba". unrast-verlag.de. Retrieved 8 March 2019.[ dead link ]
  2. "Decolonizing Knowledge Grada Kilomba". Akademie der Künste der Welt. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  3. 1 2 Kilomba, Grada. "Biography of Grada Kilomba". Archived from the original on 17 February 2014. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  4. 1 2 "Talk Show | Insight Germany | DW | 16.10.13 | Deutsche Welle". 20 December 2014. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  5. Kilomba, Grada (3 June 2009). "Das N-Wort | bpb". bpb.de (in German). Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  6. "Artista Grada Kilomba evoca o passado colonial para "chegar ao presente e futuro"". ojogo.pt (in Portuguese). Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Grada., Kilomba (2008). Plantation memories : episodes of everyday racism. Münster: Unrast. ISBN   9783897714854. OCLC   435803984.
  8. Grada Kilomba (25 January 2016), "Plantation Memories" by Grada Kilomba, Trailer I (Engl./Port.) , retrieved 9 March 2019
  9. Grada Kilomba (22 August 2016), "Plantation Memories" by Grada Kilomba, Trailer II (Engl./Port.) , retrieved 9 March 2019
  10. "Ballhaus Naunynstraße – Plantation Memories – Episodes of Everyday Racism". ballhausnaunynstrasse.de. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  11. 1 2 Paulo, Bienal São. "Grada Kilomba • Performance: Illusions – 32nd Bienal". 32bienal.org.br. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  12. Knopf, Eva; Lembcke, Sophie; Recklies, Mara (30 September 2018). Archive dekolonialisieren: Mediale und epistemische Transformationen in Kunst, Design und Film (in German). transcript Verlag. ISBN   9783839443422.
  13. Welt, Haus der Kulturen der (29 June 2017). "Bodies of Fact: The Archive from Witness to Voice". HKW. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  14. 1 2 "Descolonizando o Conhecimento: uma Palestra-Performance de Grada Kilomba – MITSP" . Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  15. Grada Kilomba (11 May 2015), "WHILE I WRITE" by Grada Kilomba , retrieved 8 March 2019
  16. (K)ein Geschlecht oder viele? : Transgender in politischer Perspektive. Schulte-Fischedick, Valeria. (1. Aufl ed.). Berlin: Querverl. 2002. ISBN   3896560840. OCLC   248568236.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  17. Spricht die Subalterne deutsch? : Migration und postkoloniale Kritik. Steyerl, Hito., Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Encarnación., Kien, Nghi Ha. (1. Aufl ed.). Münster: Unrast. 2003. ISBN   3897714256. OCLC   55513934.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  18. The black book : Deutschlands Häutungen. Öffentlichkeit gegen Gewalt e.V. AntiDiskriminierungsBüro Köln., CyberNomads (Organization). Frankfurt am Main: IKO—Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation. 2004. ISBN   388939745X. OCLC   60520550.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  19. Lust am Denken : "Queeres" jenseits kultureller Verortungen : das Befragen von Queer-Theorien und "queerer" Praxis hinsichtlich ihrer Übertragbarkeit auf verschiedene gesellschaftspolitische Bereiche. Perko, Gudrun., Czollek, Leah Carola, 1954–. Köln: PapyRossa. 2004. ISBN   3894382945. OCLC   57220700.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  20. Mythen, Masken und Subjekte : kritische Weissseinsforschung in Deutschland. Eggers, Maureen Maisha (2., überarb. Aufl ed.). Münster: Unrast. 2009. ISBN   9783897714403. OCLC   317710823.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  21. Utopia of alliances, conditions of impossibilities and the vocabulary of decoloniality : conflictual histories in hegemonic spaces. Agredo, Caroline,, Avraham, Sheri,, Cannito, Annalisa,, Gerothanasis, Miltiadis,, Gržinić, Marina, 1958–, Lôbo, Marissa. Wien. 2013. ISBN   9783854095897. OCLC   870962125.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  22. Asking, we walk : the South as new political imaginary. Kumar, Corinne. Bangalore. 2007. ISBN   9788190467742. OCLC   864759703.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  23. "Upp till kamp mot illusionernas makt". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 20 May 2021.
  24. Gallery, McLaughlin. "Grada Kilomba: The Words That Were Missing at McLaughlin Gallery" . Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  25. "Resist! Die Kunst des Widerstands – Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum". Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
Grada Kilomba
Grada Kilomba(c)2016.jpg
Kilomba in 2016
Born
Lisbon, Portugal
Academic background
EducationPhD
Alma mater Free University of Berlin
Thesis  (2007)