Exhibition by artist Grada Kilomba opens in London

The Portuguese artist Grada Kilomba will make her debut in a solo exhibition in the United Kingdom in a show entitled "Uma alma, uma história" which opens this Wednesday at the Goodman Gallery, in London.

The exhibition will feature a series of new works that use the boat as a metaphor to explore recurring violence and the relationship between narrative, power and repetition, explains a statement. "When history is not told properly, barbarism is repeated", says the Berlin-based artist. At the center of the exhibition is the sculptural installation "18 verses", made up of burnt wooden blocks spread out and wrapped in black fabric, symbolizing a shipwreck. Verses from a poem by the artist were inscribed on the 18 wooden blocks, translated into several languages: Yoruba, Kimbundu, Cape Verdean Creole, Portuguese, English and Syrian Arabic. Accompanying it is a sound piece that combines human breathing with the sound of wind and waves. The work is an allusion to "the dramatic migratory routes that cross the waters of the Mediterranean, echoing images, gestures and sounds that suggest a sense of historical repetition". One of the verses, "A soul, a memory", names the exhibition.
"18 verses" is a variation of the performative installation "O Barco", presented for the first time in Lisbon at BoCA - Bienal de Arte Contemporânea, in 2021, and repeated last year in London at the 1-54 Feira de Arte Contemporânea Africana. Another work featured in the exhibition in London is "Table of Goods" ("Table of the Gods"), which dates from 2017, and previously exhibited in Brazil. The piece consists of a mound of earth where there are handfuls of coffee, sugar, dark chocolate and cocoa, the products that fueled the slave trade.
"The work seeks to recall centuries of work and deaths that took place on the plantations and reminds us that the trade in these goods remains inextricably linked to our colonial past and present", explains the statement.

Who is Grada Kilomba?

Grada Kilomba, who lives in Berlin, Germany, is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and researcher with a PhD in Philosophy from the Free University of Berlin, and who has been teaching at several international universities, such as the University of Arts in Vienna, Austria. With roots in São Tomé e Príncipe and Angola, the artist has worked on issues of racism, colonial trauma, silenced voices and gender, and was one of five artists invited to submit a proposal for a memorial to slavery in Lisbon, a competition who would choose that of the Angolan artist Kiluanji Kia Henda.
Kilomba's works also raise questions about knowledge, power and cyclical violence, having been exhibited at events such as the 10th Berlin Biennial, Documenta 14 in Kassel, the Lubumbashi VI Biennial, and the 32nd Biennial of São Paulo, as well as in several international museums and theaters.
As supports, she has chosen performance, scenic reading, texts, video and installation, focusing on the themes of memory, trauma, gender and post-colonialism, being represented in public and private collections such as the Tate Modern, in London.