O Barco | The Boat

Artist Grada Kilomba discusses her latest work O Barco | The Boat (2021), a large-scale installation, performance and film that carefully draws from the archaeology of trauma. Kilomba interrupts the collective imaginary and exposes the horrors of slavery. The themes of memory, forgetting and erasing are explored in a process of remembering and rewriting in order to contemplate the future. As the artist states: “Retelling history anew and properly is a necessary ceremony, a political act. Otherwise, history becomes haunted. It repeats itself. It returns intrusively, as fragmented knowledge, interrupting and assaulting our present lives.”

Grada Kilomba is an artist whose work draws on memory, trauma and postcolonialism. Best known for her unique practice of storytelling, Kilomba uses performance, staged reading, video, installation and photography, and also makes publications. Her work has been presented at the documenta 14, Kassel and 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, among others.

Magnus Elias Rosengarten (moderator) is a writer, artist and co-curator of Ámà: 4 Days on Caring, Repairing and Healing. He has written for ContemporaryAnd Magazine (C&), Artforum and Berlin Biennale as well as presenting work at the Kraine Theatre, New York City (2016) and the California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2018).