Born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal with Angolan, Sao Toman, and Portuguese roots, Berlin-based artist and writer Grada Kilomba finds it conflicting to say that she belongs to any specific place. In fact, she condemns patriotic notions of identity and nationality. To her, they solely promote a “very old and dangerous concept linked to conservative politics,” a notion she is not interested in cultivating or belonging to.
Over a late breakfast at her cozy Kreuzberg home, a place she shares with her life and work partner, actor and musician Moses Leo, and their two children, Kilomba tells me that she feels like she belongs everywhere, which informs her rather futuristic notion of identity, equipping her with respectful thinking towards humanity. Kilomba’s artistic output, too, is invariably imbued with a progressive nature. She conveys her thoughts on the social injustices related to postcolonialism through writing, theater, dance, and reading. Her film and performance trilogy, A World of Illusions, which encompasses her adaptations of three Greek myths—Narcissus and Echo, Oedipus, and Antigone—and which she has shown internationally from Germany and Sweden to Japan, garnered critical acclaim for its candid depiction of institutionalized racism and exploiter dynamics. More so, Kilomba’s inclusive body of work vanquishes tired notions of selfhood with a sense of compassion and candor, giving life to projects in which narratives of the past are finally nuanced and three-dimensional. Formally, Kilomba liberates herself from rigid structures, building her works up from writing to performance to installation and narration in a way where each discipline transcends the other, forming a new, holistic approach to interdisciplinary art.
