Photo: Tiago Baccarin/Estúdio Garagem/Fundação Bienal de São Paulo
donna Kukama is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice engages performance art as a tool for creative research. Her work presents institutions, monuments, gestures of protest, rumors, and fleeting moments that are as real as they are fictitious. Shifting between performance, video, text, sound, and multimedia installations, her practice takes on a form that is experimental, applying methods that are deliberately undisciplined. She uses performance as a strategy that allows her to invent as well as to apply methods that are outside the canon of what is predictable or expected. Kukama questions how histories are narrated and subverts how value systems are constructed, instead centering methods and perspectives that originate from the Global South. Through her practice, she weaves major with minor aspects of histories, introducing fragile and brief moments of ‘strangeness’ within sociopolitical settings. Her performances are to be understood as gestures of poetry with a political intent and an urgent need to destabilize existing canons regarding the ways we look at reality. For Kukama, performance becomes a strategy for inserting foreign ‘undocumented’ voices and presences into history by occupying sites and territories that remember less-told stories.
Kukama has exhibited and performed at various international institutions and museums including, among others, the South London Gallery in London (2022); Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Deurle (2022); Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto (2022); Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town (2021); Musée - Frac Occitanie Toulouse in Toulouse (2021); FUTURA Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague (2020); De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill On Sea (2019); Arnolfini in Bristol (2019); Nottingham Contemporary in Nottingham (2018); Kunsthal KaDe in Amersfoort (2018); Padiglione de’Arte Contemporanea Milano in Milan (2017); Tate Modern in London (2015); and MhKA in Antwerp (2015). She has been included on several international exhibitions, such as the 57th Belgrade Biennale (2018); 32nd Bienal de São Paulo (2016); the 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2015); 3rd New Museum Triennale (2015); Biennale of Moving Images in Geneva (2014); 12th Lyon Biennale (2013); and the 55th Venice Biennale (2013). Recent solo exhibitions include Ways-of-Remembering-Existing at Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg (2022), and mooood at blank projects in Cape Town (2019).
In 2014, she was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Performance Art, and the Wyss Scholarship at ECAV, Switzerland in 2005. She is currently a research associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre at the University of Johannesburg. Kukama currently lives and works in Cologne, Germany, where she is a professor of Contemporary Art with a focus on the Global South at the Academy of Media Arts (KHM).
Kukama’s work is represented in several notable collections, including the Johannesburg Art Gallery (Johannesburg), Iziko South African National Art Gallery (Cape Town), and Wits Art Museum (Johannesburg).
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curriculum vitae
1981 Born in Mahikeng, South Africa
Lives and works in Cologne, Germany
education
2005-2008 Postgraduate Degree in MAPS (Masters of Arts in the Public Sphere), Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Valais, Sierre, Switzerland
2003-2004 B-Tech (Fine Arts), Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa
1999-2004 National Diploma in Fine Arts, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa
selected exhibitions
2023 Gordon Matta-Clark, Giorgio Andreotta Calò, donna Kukama e Hans Schabus, Alfabeto Bianco, Piacenza, Italy
2023 t r a n s c e n d e n c e, Galerie Tschud, Zuoz, Switzerland
2023 The Orange River, SixtySix London, London, UK
2023 lO, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 OCCUPATION, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2022 Ways-of-Remembering-Existing, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa (SOLO)
2022 The 't' is silent, 8th Biennial of Painting, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium
2022 The Show is Over, South London Gallery, London, UK
2022 The weight of a stone, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 BREATHLESS, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2021 A Line Beyond, AVA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 Festival Horizons d’eau, les Abattoirs, Musée - Frac Occitanie Toulouse, Toulouse, France
2021 Territories Between Us, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 La Matìere vivante, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy
2021 Territories Under My Skin, Changing Room, Berlin, Germany
2020 For Time-Travellers in Search of Fresh Air, TURBA Gallery, Hanover, Germany
2020 The Cave & The Garden, FUTURA Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic
2020 Performance/ Documentation/ Presentation, Lunds Konsthal, Lund, Germany
2019 the head the hand, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance: Act Three, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
2019 mooood, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa (SOLO)
2019 Highly Personal: South African Artists and Their HandPrint Portraits, Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago, USA
2019 Shifts in Time, curated by McNamara Art Projects, Over the Influence Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2019 Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance: Act Two, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill On Sea, UK
2019 CONDO London, hosted by Corvi-Mora and greengrassi, London, UK
2018 open agenda, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
2018 The Marvellous Cacophony, 57th October Salon, Belgrade, Serbia
2018 We the Not-Not People!, Maitland Institute, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 blank, Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin, Germany
2018 Print Promises, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 The Collection for the Poor Collector, SPERLING, Munich, Germany
2018 Tell Freedom: 15 South African Artists, Kunsthal KaDe, Amersfoort, Netherlands
2017 Inauguration of Kohta: Juha Pekka Matias Laakkonen and Donna Kukama, Kohta, Helsinki, Finland
2017 Africa, Raccontare un Mondo, Padiglione de’Arte Contemporanea Milano, Milan, Italy
2017 Urban Cadence: Street Scenes from Lagos and Johannesburg, Gund Gallery, Ohio, USA
2016 Jerusalem Show VIII: Before and After Origins, Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem
2016 Incerteza Viva (Live Uncertainty), 32nd Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil
2016 CHR Museum, Nothing Gets Organised, Johannesburg, South Africa
2016 Nothing is Impossible, CCA Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe; Cult Gallery, San Francisco; and Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles, USA
2016 Figure, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 About a work #7, Galleria Zero, Milan, Italy
2015 The Welfare State, MhKA, Antwerp, Belgium
2015 The Film Will Always Be You: Points and Counterpoints, screenings at Tate Modern, London, UK
2015 How to Gather?… 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
2015 Surround Audience, New Museum Generational Triennial, New York, USA
2014 Biennale of Moving Images 2014, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva, Switzerland
2014 it’s all video, video, video, curated by Rory Bester, BIOSCOPE, Johannesburg, South Africa
2014 FAST FORWARD, a project curated by Olivia Anani, In partnership with Afrikadaa and Zajia Lab, Zajia Lab, Beijing, China
2014 Don’t You Know Who I Am?: Kunst na Identiteitspolitiek / Art after Identity Politics / L’Art après la Politique de l’Identité, curated by Anders Kreuger and Nav Haq, M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium
2014 Digging Our Own Graves 101, 8th Berlin Biennale, Germany (as part of Centre of Historical Reenactments)
2014 MINE, film screenings accompanying The Divine Comedy, Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt, Germany
2014 Public Intimacy: Art and other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, SFMOMA, San Francisco, USA
2013 This is the thing, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 By Night Visual Arts Festival, Courant d’Arts, St Denis, France
2013 blank projects in Johannesburg, Ithuba Arts Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013 Imaginary Fact, South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
2013 Meanwhile … Suddenly and Then, 12th Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France
2013 Xenoglossia, the Exhibition, Goethe on Main, Johannesburg, South Africa (as part of Centre of Historical Reenactments)
2013 My Joburg, Maison Rouge, Paris, France
2013 After-After Tears, New Museum, New York, USA
2013 23 Kilograms, Galerie West, The Hague, Netherlands
2012 When Attitudes Become Form, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 The Visible Screening Program: “Sharing Transformation”, Kunsthaus Graz, Germany
2012 Machine Worries, Machine Hearts, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 Where Dreams Cross, Art:Screen Festival, Orebro, Sweden
2012 Joburg, DONT/PANIC, Center For Historical Reenactments, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Exuberance Project Exhibition (as part of Centre of Historical Reenactments), Mandela Rhodes Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 EXTRASPECTIVE, Parking Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Dis/Play, Goethe On Main, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 MINE, UJ Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 UNACCEPTABLE, Blank Projects, Cape Town, South Africa (SOLO)
2012 MINE, DUCTAC, Dubai, UAE
2012 DON’T/PANIC at the Durban Art Gallery, coinciding with the UN Global Summit in Climate Change (COP17), Durban, South Africa
2011 Xenoglossia (as part of Centre of Historical Reenactments), Biennale de Lyon, France
2011 CONNECTIONS, Kunsthalle Luzern, Switzerland
2011 MAP South Africa, University of Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
2011 Becoming-Animal, Goethe-Institut Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2011 Mine: A selection of films by South African artists, Iwalewa-House, Afrikazentrum der Universität Bayreuth, Germany
2010 Featuring Simplicity as an Irrational Fear, Michael Stevenson Project Space, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Contemporary Artists from South Africa, Gallery 3,14, Bergen, Switzerland
2010 US (part of the exhibition 1910-2010: FROM PIERNEEF TO GUGULECTIVE), South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Hearts & Minds (Part of the Third Biennial Art History Symposium, Africa on My Mind: Contemporary Art, Home and Abroad), Hall Street Gallery, Savannah, USA
2010 Arte InVisible, ARCO Fair, Madrid, Spain
2009 Dada South? Exploring Dada legacies in South African Art 1960 to the present, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2009 6 Stories/6 Hours/6 Artists, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 US, Johannesburg Art Gallery & Goodman Project Space, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 On Screen: Global Intimacy, Krannert Art Museum, Illinois, USA
2009 Take Me to the River, DEPO, Istanbul Multipistes Parties, Meneer de Wit, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2008 Pool of possibilities, Mapping Currents for the Third Ghuangzhou Trienniale (online http://www.aaa.org.hk/3gzt/)
2008 I will never W**k Alone in Chile, Traffixxx gallery, Santiago, Chile
2008 Gast/Spiel, a fringe project during ArtBasel, held at Hohstraum 11, Basel, Switzerland
2008 Archives Projects, L’arsenic, Lausanne Femme et l’Autorité, Villa Dutoit, Geneva, Switzerland
2008 Scratching The Surface VOL 1, AVA Gallery, Cape Town, Switzerland
2007 Positive:Pulse, Sun City, Rustenburg, South Africa
2007 Devénir-Animal, L’Arsenic, Lausanne, Switzerland
2007 M.A.P.S en Cuenca, Universidad De Castilla-La Mancha (Facultad De Bellas Artes), Cuenca, Spain
2006 Age of Hope, United Nations Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland
2006 Visions d’Artistes, Dak’Art off Biennalé, Yassine Art Center, Dakar, Senegal
2005 Take Me to the River, The Pretoria Art Museum, Tshwane, South Africa
2004 Young Vision: featuring 11 Most Promising South African Artists, L’Alliance Français, Johannesburg, South Africa
2004 Negotiate, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2004 Geslag, Aardklop Arts Festival, Potchefstroom, South Africa
2004 Real Presence; Generation 4, Yugoslavian Museum of National History, Belgrade, Serbia
selected performances and screenings
2022 7 Winds, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland
2022 Chapter V: Even when we are all no longer visible, I will continue to breathe for us, Volt, Bergen, Switzerland
2022 GOGOGO 2022, Le Grütli, Geneva, Switzerland
2018 The Marvellous Cacophony, 57th October Salon, Belgrade, Serbia
2018 We the Not-Not People! -Things done, not told. Inscribed, not written. ICA Live Art Festival, Maitland Institute, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 Chapter Q: Dem Short-Short Falls, Bijlmerramp Monument, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2017 Introduction Here…WE THE PEOPLE!, Various locations, South Africa (ongoing)
2017 The Garden of Excuses, Frieze London, Regent’s Park, London, UK
2017 Chapter P: The Not-Not Educational Spirits, E.O.T.O. Library, Berlin, Germany
2017 Chapter U: Me, looking at You, Looking at Me, Looking at You, PAC Museum, Milan, Italy
2017 Chapter Y: Is Survival Not Archival?, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 Chapter L: When Rain Clouds Gathered…, Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town, South Africa
2016 Chapter X: A mouthful of Hot Air (When we re-blackened our faces and turned), New Gate, Jerusalem
2016 Chapter F: The Free School for Art and all ‘Fings Necessary (Until Fees Fall), South Africa (ongoing)
2016 Chapter B: I, Too, Sao Paulo Biennale Pavilion, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2016 Chapter A: The Anatomy of History, Museo Afro Brasil, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2016 Chapter C: The Genealogy of Pain, Cemitério da Consolaçao, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2016 TO BE ANNOUNCED…, Nothing Gets Organised, Johannesburg, South Africa
2015 TO BE ANNOUNCED, nGbK, Berlin, Germany
2015 The Cemetery for Bad Behaviour, VDNKh, Moscow, Russia
2015 The Monument of Apologies, Matonge, Brussels, Belgium
2015 What we caught we threw away, what we didn’t catch we kept, Antwerp
2014 The Museum of Non-Permanence, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa
2013 The Very Last Announcement, South African Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
2013 The Air-Space Urgency (Expo), Frac Des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, France
2013 A Catalogue Without Pages (Vol1 & Vol 2), La Museé d’art Contemporaine & Sucriére, Biennale de Lyon, France
2013 The Air-State Urgency (Shop), L’Agence Creative, Bordeaux, France
2013 The Air-State Urgency (Launch), St Denis, Reunion Island
2013 Conceptual Recitals, Lausanne, Switzerland
2013 If the past were to be postponed to the future, would this moment be a memory?, New Museum, New York, USA
2013 I Had A Dream, FundBuro, Mirages Festival, Lyon 2013 Chop-Shop, Mirages Festival, Lyon, France
2013 The Fyootchar Kourt of Traded Justices, The Hague, Netherlands
2012 Trade Re-Routed, in collaboration with Anthea Moys, Joburg Art Fair & Joburg Fringe, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Fr(a)gile, Alf Khumalo Museum, Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa (CHR)
2012 What Happened in 2081? Center For Historical Reenactments, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 To U-turn or to One-Way?, part of Shoe-Shop project, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Black and White flags, going up-and-down, Not No Place, Goethe Project Space, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 The Chop-Shoppers, Jeppe str, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 The Investment Bank of Elsewhere, Center For Historical Reenactments, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Cafe Exchange, Substation, WITS University, Johannesburg, South Africa
2011 1998-2008 (and I), in collaboration with Katrin Grögel, Archiv Performativ: Ein Modell, AusstellungsraumKlingental, Basel, Sitzerland
2011 Room 207, Hillbrow, Johannesburg, South Africa
2011 Becoming-Animal, in collaboration with Motel Mari, Goethe-Institut, Johannesburg, South Africa
2011 It’s not business, It’s strictly personal, BLICK-WECHSEL-AUF-AUS-STELLUNG, Museum der Culturen, Basel, Switzerland
2011 Performing Nowhere, during the FOCUS11 Symposium on Live Art, Basel, Switzerland
2010 Black Money Market, during University of Basel’s 550th Anniversary, Switzerland
2010 Like a Blind Man Looking for a Black Cat That Isn’t There, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2010 The Unknowing Grammar of Inhabiting a Text, performance with Kemang Wa Lehulere, Center for Historical Re-Enactments, Johannesburg – Strasbourg
2010 1000 Ways of Being, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2009 The Swing (After After Fragonard), Mai-Mai Market, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 The Great South African Art Queue, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2009 Mass Action Strike!, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 Heart of Darkness: Vol 1.1, Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa
2008 Does a Snowball Have to be White?, Chateau Mercier, Sierre, Switzerland
2008 The Red Suitcase, 9th Elia Biennial Conference, Ghent, Belgium
2008 Not Yet (and nobody knows why not), Uhuru Gardens, Nairobi, Namibia
2008 Silang Mabele III, Hohlraum 11, Basel, Switzerland
2008 Does a Snowball Have to be White?, Chateau Mercier, Sierre, Switzerland
2007 Let Go II, L’Arsenic, Lausanne, Switzerland
2007 Treason 2, in collaboration with Joubert Park Projects, Sierre, Switzerland
2006 Unity & Duality, performance with Katherine Oggier, Férme Asile, Sion, Switzerland
2006 Silang Mabele II, The Container (FAC-ECAV), Sierre, Switzerland
2005 Dieledi, The Pretoria Art Museum, Tshwane, South Africa
2004 Curio, L’Alliance Français, Johannesburg, South Africa
2004 Breath, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2004 Silang Mabele, Yugoslavian Museum of National History, Belgrade, Serbia
2003 Diketo, Potchefstroom National Arts Festival, South Africa
collectives
2010 Center for Historical Reenactments – CHR
2011-2012 NON_NON Collective
awards / shortlists
2014 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Performance Art, South Africa
2011 Visible Award, Italy (shortlisted)
2011 Ernst Schering Art Award, Germany (finalist)
2010 MTN New Contemporaries Award, South Africa (finalist)
2005 – 2008 Wyss Scholarship, Sierre, Switzerland
residencies
2018 Maitland Institute, Cape Town
2017 CBK Residency, Amsterdam
2015 AIR Antwerpen, Antwerp
2013 FRAC de Pays de la Loire, Carquefou
2011 Pro-Helvetia Studio Residency, FOCUS, Basel
