Pace Gallery has announced that it now represents Grada Kilomba, a Portuguese interdisciplinary artist, writer, and psychoanalyst whose work critically examines themes of trauma, racism, and post-colonial narratives, examining the 600-year history of European politics which has perpetuated the oppression and othering of Black people.
Born in Lisbon and is of West African descent (São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola), Kilomba studied clinical psychology and psychoanalysis at the Instituto de Psicologia Aplicada (ISPA). While practicing as a psychologist in Portugal, she worked in psychiatry with war-traumatised people from Angola and Mozambique and initiated various artistic and therapeutic projects on trauma and memory as well as on the work of Frantz Fanon. Kilomba received a PhD in Philosophy from the Free University of Berlin in 2008 and has taught post-colonial studies, psychoanalysis, and the work of Frantz Fanon at various universities.
Kilomba's work is a culmination of her multifaceted practice; she sees her performances as embodiments of critical text and reviews methods of storytelling, confronting formative narratives which perpetuate harmful beliefs. In Portugal, Kilomba identifies ongoing mythologies about the nation’s origins that continue to apotheosize the perpetrators of the Atlantic slave trade, which began in the 15th century with Portuguese traders.
Kilomba will continue to be represented by Goodman Gallery, which currently has a show of her work on view at its London space. The exhibition, titled One soul, one memory, features 18 Verses (2022), a new series of works on paper that explore themes of memory, identity, and belonging through poetic texts and images.
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