Euridice Zaituna Kala

She was born in 1987 in Maputo, Mozambique, She lives and works in Maisons-Alfort.

Euridice Zaituna Kala is a Mozambican artist-teacher, whose work focuses on cultural and historical metamorphoses, manipulations and adaptations. The artist reproduces the visual vocabulary of historical archives to reveal its subjectivities, but also those they have made invisible. She questions the appropriation of black bodies through their representation within archives; but rather than capturing their history, it attempts to reaffirm their existence. Kala is interested in contemporary art based on artistic research, with an expression in plural forms, a practice that presents itself as interdisciplinary and protean (performances, installations, photographs, texts, videos, sculptures/landscapes, sound works…)

A graduate in experimental photography from the Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg (South Africa) in 2012 and from the Asiko School in Maputo (Mozambique) in 2015. Euridice Zaituna Kala is a finalist for the Paulo Cunha e Silva Prize (2023), she is also a laureate of a research residency at the Villa Albertine in New York (2022/2023 season), the Villa Medici residency in Rome (2023), and the Villa Vassilieff / ADAGP scholarship (2019/2020).
She has presented numerous performances including Sea(E)scapes: Listening Session at the Jeu de Paume (2022), Tœtra (based on the text Je suis l’archive) at the Center Pompidou (2021), Stranger, Danger: Wait, it’s just a prayer Room at the Center Pompidou (2019), Mackandal Turns into a Butterfly: a love portion, at La Galerie-Cac in Noisy-le-Sec (2018).
Recent solo exhibitions: Sea(E) scapes DNA: Don’t (N)ever Ask, (2022) at Salon H gallery in Paris, Je suis l’archive, I the archive (2020) at Villa Vassilieff (Paris). Kala has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including: Prémio Paulo Cunha e Silva at the Municipal Gallery in Porto (2023), Indigo Waves and Other Stories, at the Savvy Contemporary in Berlin (2023), Fata Morgana at the Jeu de Paume, Paris (2022), This Is Not Africa – Unlearn What You Have Learned at the ARoS museum, Aarhus (2021), The power from within at La Galerie, Center d’Art Contemporain, Noisy-le-Sec, ( 2018).
Kala is also a teacher-artist in the “Construire les Mondes” course at the Nantes School of Fine Arts.
She is also the founder and co-organizer of e.a.s.t. (Ephemeral Archival Station), a laboratory and platform for artistic research projects, established in 2017.

2022
Sea(e)scapes DNA : Don’t (N)ever Ask, soutien à la première exposition de la Cnap,
commissariat : Manon Barbe, la galerie Salon H (Paris).

2021
Rangement, de-Rangement, FIAC Hors-les-Murs, Jardin des Tuileries (Paris), galerie Anne Barrault.

2020
Je suis l’archive, I, the archive, commissariat : Camille Chenais, Villa Vassilieff (Paris).

2014
Will See you in December Tomorrow- -WSYDt, Musée d’art Moderne, Ansteys (Maputo, Johannesburg).

2023
The Words Create Images, Biennale de Casablanca, direction artistique Christine Eyene, Casablanca.
Indigo Waves and Other Stories, commissariat : Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Natasha Ginwala Savvy Contemporary, Berlin.
Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize, Galeria Municipal, Porto.
22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, Memory is an Editing Station, commissariat : Solange Farkas, Raphael Fonseca et Renee Akitelek Mboya, São Paulo.

2022
But I’m Awake. Identity, Vulnerability and Empowerment, FUTURES, dans le cadre de
la triennale de photographie de Hambourg, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Musée d’art et de photographie, Hambourg.
How Will You Ascertain Time?, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin.
Ano Zero, commissariat : Elfi Turpin et Filipa de Oliveira, Biennale de Coimbra, Coimbra.
Fata Morgana, commissariat : Béatrice Gross et Katinka Bock, Jeu de Paume, Paris.
History’s Footnote, commissariat : Khanyisile Mbongwa, Marres, Maastricht.
Un.e Air.e de Famille, commissariat : Anne Yanover et Clémentine Dramani-Issifou, Musée d’art et d’histoire Paul Éluard, Saint-Denis.
Polyphone, polyphonies visuelles et sonores, commissariat : Anne Zeitz, Kunstsammlung, Gera.
This Is Not Africa ‒ Unlearn What You Have Learned, commissariat : Scaa Tamale, Aros Museum, Aarhus.
D’ailleurs je viens d’ici, commissariat : Sandrine Honliasso et Ariane Blanc, Théâtre de la Comédie, Caen.

2020
Tomorrow There Will Be More of Us, Triennale de Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch

2019
I Shall Dance in a Different Society, Ernest Mancoba, commissariat : Alicia Knock, Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Love and Ethnology : Hubert Fichte, commissariat : Anselm Frank et Diedrich Diederichsen, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.
4ème Triennale : Small Sculpture in Fellbach, Fellbach.
Some of Us : pavillon français de l’exposition NORDART, commissariat : Jérôme Cotinet-Alphaize et Marianne Derrien, Büdelsdorf.

2018
Sang Roses Aligné·e·s, Galerie Laboratoire Bx, Centre actif d’art contemporain, Bordeaux.
Measure the Valleys, commissariat : Martine Michard et Caroline Hancock, Maison des Arts Georges & Claude Pompidou, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Cajarc.
e.a.s.t, Island, Bruxelles.
African History and the Foundation of a Modern Aesthetic, commissariat : Smooth Nwezi Ugochukwo Iwalewahaus, Université de Bayreuth.

2017
Mistake! Mistake! said the rooster… and stepped down from the duck, commissariat : Jürgen Bock, Lumiar Cité, Lisbonne.

2016
We, the People, Yes, we the people, we are responsible for the world around us – Biennale Internationale de Casablanca.
CoHabitar, commissariat : Filomena Serra, Giulia Lamoni et Margarida Breto Alves, Lisbonne.
The Seeing Power, Biennale de l’art contemporain africain (Dak’art) commissariat : Simon Njami, au Palais de la Justice, Dakar.

2015
Embodied Spaces, commissariat : Christine Eyene, Framer Framed, Amsterdam.

2023
Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis, Rome.
Villa Albertine, New York, Chicago.

2019-2020
Urbane Kunst, Mülheim an der Ruhr.

2018
Maisons Daura, résidences internationales d’artistes, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie.

2016
Residência Artística para Artes Visuais e Fotografia Câmera Municipal e o Centro Cultural Português,Lisbonne.
180° Artistas do Sul- Hangar, Lisbonne.

2015
360° Triangle Workshop- Hangar, Lisbonne.
ASIKO “A History of Contemporary Art in Maputo in 4 weeks”, Maputo.

2014
Fondation Blachère , Apt.
Curiosity Backpackers- Johannesburg.
Creative Workshop “Women Speak Out” commissariat de Christine Eyene, Bonendale.