Euridice Zaituna Kala

Euridice Zaituna Kala was born in 1987 in Maputo and lives and works in Maisons-Alfort.

Euridice Zaituna Kala is an artist-educator whose work addresses the historical and cultural transformations of memory (both personal and collective) as a material that is manipulated and appropriated. The artist draws from the visual and matrimonial vocabulary of archives to seek traces of invisible subjectivities and communities. She is interested in the representation of [black] bodies and the material conditions of their existence (architectures, ecosystems, elements) with the aim of producing reparative and familiar gestures. Her work takes the form of installations, performances, images, objects, and books.

A graduate in experimental photography from the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg (South Africa) in 2012 and from the Asiko School in Maputo (Mozambique) in 2015, Euridice Zaituna Kala is a laureate of the Villa Vassilieff / ADAGP Fellowship (2019/2020).

She is also a finalist for the Paulo Cunha e Silva Prize (2023) and a laureate of a research residency at the Villa Albertine in New York (2022/2023 season). In 2023, she is in residence at the Villa Medicis in Rome to conduct research on the Mozambican artist Bertina Lopes.

Euridice Zaituna Kala has presented numerous performances, including Ritual as March as Protest at HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt (2023), Sea(E)scapes: Listening Session at Jeu de Paume (2022), Tœtra (based on the text Je suis l’archive) at the Centre Pompidou (2021), Stranger, Danger: Wait, it’s just a prayer Room at the Centre Pompidou (2019), and Mackandal Turns into a Butterfly: a love portion at La Galerie- CAC de Noisy-le-Sec (2018).

Recent solo exhibitions: En quelques gestes: as if two suns were setting, (2024) galerie anne barrault, 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).

In 2024, she was invited to participate in the exhibition Passengers in Transit (curated by Paula Nascimento, Oyindamola Faithful, and Roger and Niyigena Karera) as part of the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale, and took part in the exhibition Echos der Bruderländer at HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.

She is currently presenting a solo exhibition at the Centre d’Art la Criée in Rennes, titled Daylighting, but it is the water that speaks, which gives voice to numerous struggles—ecological, feminist, indigenous—that she brings together and connects to her own story and the history of the city.

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.