Campus Westend, Casino, Cas 823. The event is open to the public and does not require prior registration.
The festive hall is wheelchair accessible and on the ground floor. More information here.
Unfortunately, we are unable to guarantee other forms of accessibility. If you wish to participate in the event and need specific accomodation, please let us know.
“Whom do we choose to remember? And whom do we choose to forget, in the public spaces? What is memorialise? And what is forgotten? Whom is forgotten? Whose history? And which memories? And can we recall the memories of an imaginary Black Venus?” These questions are at the very center of Grada Kilomba’s closing lecture-performance. Kilomba guides us into her unique artistic practice of performing knowledge, in which she gives body, voice, form, movement and image to her own writings. In her ouevre knowledge is translated into visual and sculptural language and becomes performative storytelling, to raise questions around violence, repetition and post-coloniality. In this final part, Kilomba transits from the gallery room into public art and monumental architecture. “Is a monument a form of storytelling? And how to interrupt it?” In this lecture-performance titled Opera to a Black Venus, Kilomba uses the metaphor of the Black Venus, to explore the concepts of Middle Passage, historical amnesia, displacement and water surveillance, public art, hybridity, narratives of remembrance and resilience.
Grada Kilomba is a Berlin-based Portuguese artist, whose work draws on memory, trauma and post-colonialism. Using performance, staged reading, video, photography, large scale sculptural and sonic installations, the artist interrogates concepts of knowledge, violence and repetition. Kilomba’s work is best known for her subversive practice of storytelling, in which she creates a poetic and immersive imagery, giving body, voice, form and movement to her own writings. “What stories are told? How are they told? Where are they told? And told by whom?” are constant questions in Kilomba’s body of work.
Kilomba holds a distinguished Doctorate in Philosophy from the Freie Universität Berlin, and in 2023 the artist was awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa by University of ISPA, Lisbon. She has been a guest Professor at several international universities, such as Humboldt University - Berlin; the University of Legon, Accra; and the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, among others. Kilomba has resided at the prominent Maxim Gorki Theatre, in Berlin, for several years, where she developed the acclaimed project ‘Kosmos2’, an artistic and political intervention with refugee artists. She was the co-curator of the 35th Biennial of São Paulo, Choreographies of the Impossible, 2023.
She is the author of the acclaimed “Plantation Memories” (Unrast, 2008) a compilation of episodes of everyday racism written in the form of short psychoanalytical stories. Her book has been translated into several languages worldwide.
Her work has been presented in major international events such as: 10. Berlin Biennale, Berlin; Documenta 14, Kassel; 32. Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo. Selected solo and group exhibitions include the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Somerset House, London; Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Turin; Pinacoteca de São Paulo, São Paulo; Bildmuseet, Umeå; Kunsthalle Baden-Baden; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Norval Foundation, Cape Town; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, among others.
Kilomba’s work can be found in many prominent public collections around the world, including Tate Modern Collection, London; Royal Dutch Collection, Amsterdam; International African American Museum Collection, Charleston; Fitzwilliam Museum Collection, Cambridge, among others.
The closing lecture-performance is followed by a reception.
Drinks will be catered by Martha's Finest while Savanna Restaurant and Ada Kantine will provide us with delicious food. Everyone attending the closing lecture-performance is welcome to join!