Kapwani Kiwanga’s “Flowers for Africa” receives Prix Marcel Duchamp 2020

The project is an historiographic journey into the collective memories and archives reflecting on colonialism and on Africa as the aesthetic and moral space exposed to the extraction of human, non-human,  political, sociocultural, natural, and economic resources. These floral compositions become the witnesses of crucial historical moments. For each exhibition, Kiwanga recreates the floral arrangements depicted in these archive images. These flowers invite us to reflect on time and history, beyond the concept of monument and commemoration, in the tradition of Vanitas. The series is made of 13 artworks together with new unedited additions.

Kiwanga Kapwani is a Canadian artist living and working in Paris. She studied anthropology and comparative religion at McGill University in Montreal, before entering a postgraduate course at the Paris School of Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge; at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; to the Esker Foundation, Calgary; at the Power Plant, Toronto; the South London Gallery and the Serpentine Gallery, London; at the Jeu de Paume and Center Pompidou in Paris and at MACBA, Barcelona.