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Grada Kilomba (born December 6, 1968 in Lisbon) is a portuguese interdisciplinary artist and writer. Her work draws on memory, trauma, race, and gender. She is best known for her intense writing and her unconventional use of artistic practices, using a variety of formats from publications to staged readings, to video installations and performances. Her most recent work was presented at the 32. Bienal de São Paulo, 2016, and currently, she directs the series Kosmos², at the Maxim Gorki Theater, in Berlin.

Background and Education

Kilomba was born in Lisbon, where she studied Clinical Psychology and Psychoanalysis at the Instituto de Psicologia Aplicada. There, she worked at the psychiatry with war survivors. With family from São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola and Portugal, Kilomba became specially interested on mapping Post-colonial biographies and, strongly influenced by the work of Frantz Fanon, she started writing and developing artistic projects on memory, trauma, and post-colonialism. Later on, she received a Ph.D. Fellowship from the Heinrich Böll Foundation and moved to Berlin, where she attained a Doctorate in Philosophy from the Freie Universität Berlin in 2008.

Career

Kilomba has presented her work at numerous renown international venues, including the 32. Bienal de São Paulo, Rauma Biennale Balticum, Wits Theatre Johannesburg, Vienna Secession Art Museum, the Bozar Arts Museum Brussels, Berliner Festspiele, Transmediale Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, Münchner Kammerspiel, House of the World Cultures Berlin and the Oslo Literature House, among others. And she has also been a visiting lecturer at several international universities, such as University of Ghana, Accra; SOAS, London; Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna; University of Amsterdam; University of Stockholm; Wits University, Johannesburg; Academy of Arts, Berlin, among others; and late was a Professor at the Humboldt University, Berlin, lecturing "Decolonial Feminism", "Decolonising Knowledge" and "Performing Knowledge".

Work

In the Talk show Insight Germany (2013) by the Deutsche Welle, Kilomba speaks about her trajectory as an artist, and her urge to create new narratives. "My work is very experimental, I feel a certain urgency to explore formats that are outside the classic disciplines, which historically have a very colonial frame. So, in this sense I became more interested on bringing knowledge into performance, and created a kind of third space, that I call "Performing Knowledge"".. In 2016, the newspaper Die Tageszeitung writes "Kilomba's work creates a hybrid space between the academic and artistic languages, to explore forms of decolonising knowledge, bringing an experimental and compelling voice into contemporary art and discourse". At the Art Basel Salon, 2016, Kilomba eloquently speaks about the need to create new configurations of power and new configurations of knowledge. In the catalogue of the 32. Bienal de São Paulo (2016), describes, "then Kilomba decolonizes it by subverting content and undoing standard artistic practices."

As she became more concerned with the performative production of knowledge, her work has also gradually moved from the academic setting into the art scene, becoming a great source of inspiration. As The African Times (2010) wrote, "wherever she shows her work, the halls are packed with students and often the event has to be moved into a bigger hall." In 2011, she was awarded one the "Most Inspiring Black Women in Europe", by BWIE, due to her performative writings; and in 2016 she was named Sonne Woman of Excellence, by the Sonne Magazine.

Selected Works

Illusions (2017)

"A performance that draws upon African storytelling traditions and brings it to a contemporary and minimalist context of text, narration and video projection, The reading evokes th myths of Narcissus and Echo as metaphors of a colonial past and their relationship with politics of represantation and expression, in which the recovery of non-dominating stories is overshadowed by a society that mirrors itself. Immersed in projections that cover her body, Kilomba creates a narrative in which images, memories and words overlap."

The Desire Project (2016)

"The video-installation is divided into three moments - While I Speak, While I Write, and While I Walk - and explores the trajectory of silenced narratives. In these videos the only visual element is the word that, accompanied by rhythmical drumming and background voices, builds phrases whose meaning suggest the emergence of this enunciating subject, historically deleted by colonial narratives."

Kosmos² (2015-2017)

In 2015, Kilomba was invited by the artistic director of the Maxim Gorki Theater, Shermin Langoff, to direct a series of artist talks called Kosmos². " Spaces can be interrupted, appropriated, and transformed through artistic and discursive practices, creating new configurations of power and knowledge. In Kosmos² we want to reshape concepts of knowledge by inviting refugee artists, to present their work."

Decolonizing Knowledge (2015)

In 2015 she premiered her much acclaimed lecture performance “Decolonizing Knowledge” (2015) where she explores the concepts of knowledge, race and gender and the questions of ‘who can speak?’ and ‘what can we speak about?’. Kampnagel worte about her work: „To touch this colonial wound, Grada Kilomba creates a hybrid space where the boundaries between the academic and the artistic languages confine, transforming the configurations of knowledge and power.“ [1] This lecture performance was presented among others at Maxim Gorki Theater, theater Münchner Kammerspiele aswell as Bozar, Brussels, the Vienna Secession Museum and MIT São Paulo.

Plantation Memories. A Staged Reading (2013)

In 2013, Kilomba adapted and directed the staged reading for her book Plantation Memories. Episodes of Everyday Racism. This staged reading is a compilation of episodes of everyday racism in the form of short psychoanalytical stories. It offers a strong and moving insight into the experience of racism, alienation, transformation, and empowerment through the different characters.

Conakry (2013)

"Conakry" (2013), is one of recent projects, a film on the African liberation leader Amílcar Cabral. The 16mm film is a project by Grada Kilomba, the director Filipa César and the radio director and activist Diana McCarty. The film was staged at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin and was screened among others at cinema Arsenal, Berlin and the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon.

Plantation Memories (2010)

Her work became internationally known through her first book “Plantation Memories” (2008), a compilation of episodes of everyday racism written in the form of short psychoanalytical stories, first released at the Berlin International Literature Festival, at the Berliner Festspiele. Her book is described by the Festival of Literature "as a combination of academic writing and lyrical narrative, creating a very unique literary style." In 2009, The Bundeszentral für Politische Bildung wrote: "Her literary work combines postcolonial discourse and lyrical prose approaching remembered stories of slavery, colonialism and everyday racism." [4] The book became internationally acclaimed, and a significant number of academic curriculums, as well as, artistic projects have been using it as a main tool to explore the ‘post-colonial condition.'

Mythen, Masken und Subjekte (2005)

Kilomba was the co-editor of this pioneer anthology on Critical Whiteness, which includes essays from numerous artists, thinkers and activists.

Kilomba's writings have been translated into several languages and published in several international book anthologies, newspapers, magazines and journals.

Selected Exhibitions

• 2017: South-South: Let me begin again at the Goodman Gallery, Cape Town
• 2016: Incerteza Viva/Live Uncertainty at the 32. Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo
• 2016: O futuro será uma réplica at the Consulado geral de Portugal, São Paulo
• 2016: "Vulnerability" at the Rauma Biennal Balticum, Finland
• 2016: Knowledge Unbound at the University of Stockholm, Institute of Culture and Esthetics, Stockholm
• 2016: The Antropophogic Banquet at the Instituto de Artes, Universidade do Rio de Janeiro, RJ

Selected Interviews

• Feature for Revista Brasileiros - Performance "Illusions" de Grada Kilomba
• Interview for Arte Brasileiros - A descolonização do pensamento na obra de Grada Kilomba
• Interview for Deutsche Welle, Insight Germany. - "Talk with Portuguese Writer Grada Kilomba"
• Interview for Migazin - "Es geht um Bilder und die Macht von Bildern."
• Interview for der Freitag - Echoräume
• Interview for Hinterland magazine - Wissen sollte gefühlt werden
• Interview for Missy magazine - Wenn Diskurs persönlich wird
• Interview for Carta Capital - "O racismo é uma problemática branca."
• Interview for taz - "Dinosaurier mögen Konservative Formate"
• Interview for "Return to Sender", a publication for a festival at HAU, Berlin - "Wer spricht, wenn das Festival vorbei ist?"

Selected Publications

• Grada Kilomba: Who can speak? Decolonizing Knowledge. in: Corinne Kumar (Hg.), Asking, We Walk: The South As New Political Imaginary, Streelekha Publications, Bangalore, 2013. ISBN 81-904677-4-3.
• Grada Kilomba: Who can speak? Decolonizing Knowledge. in: The Editorial Group for Writing Insurgent Genealogies (Hrsg.), Utopia of Alliances, Conditions of Impossibilities and the Vocabulary of Decoloniality, Löcker Verlag, Wien, 2013. ISBN 978-3-85409-589-7.

• Plantation Memories. Episodes of Everyday Racism. 4. Aufl., Unrast Verlag, Münster, 2008. ISBN 978-3-89771-485-4

• Maureen Maisha Eggers, Grada Kilomba, Peggy Piesche und Susan Arndt (Hrsg.), Mythen, Masken und Subjekte – Kritische Weißseinsforschung in Deutschland. 2. Aufl., Unrast Verlag, Münster, 2005. ISBN 978-3-89771-440-3
• Grada Kilomba: Die Kolonisierung des Selbst – der Platz des Schwarzen. In: Hito Steyerl/Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez (Hrsg.): Spricht die Subalterne deutsch? Migration und postkoloniale Kritik. 2. Aufl., Unrast Verlag, Münster, 2003. ISBN 978-3-89771-425-0
• Grada Kilomba-Ferreira: Die Farbe unseres Geschlechts. Gedanken über "Rasse", Transgender und Marginalisierung. In: polymorph (Hrsg.): (K)ein Geschlecht oder viele? : Transgender in politischer Perspektive, Quer Verlag, Berlin, 2002. ISBN 978-3-89656-084-1