Gladys Kalichini (Zambia) is the third recipient of the Henrike Grohs Art Award, conceived by the Goethe-Institut and Grohs family. She will be awarded with a 20 000€ cash prize and 10 000€ towards a publication of her work.

The jury, made up of Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, Serubiri Moses and Princess Marilyn Douala Manga Bell explain their choice: “Her multidisciplinary research-based practice really caught our attention. Through video, sculpture, and installation, Kalichini offers a melancholic meditation on Zambia’s colonial and postcolonial histories, addressing such themes as trauma and death. Her approach to the archive as a space of enunciation, shines a critical light on acts of omission or erasure of women’s contributions to Zambia’s political history and, her ethnography on the spaces occupied by women in contemporary Zambia is a brilliant contribution. The award will spur Gladys to continue to push her exacting and boundary-defying practice in interesting directions and could serve as a spark in energizing the art scene in her home country of Zambia”

Johannes Ebert, Secretary General of the Goethe-Institut, notes: “The prize highlights and recognises the fact that working conditions for aspiring professional artists do in fact represent a challenge. This is all the more true during a global pandemic that itself hampers exchange and networking within the continent. At the same time, it also limits the international visibility that is so important for artists. The prize offers just such visibility to rising talents, and creates a platform to showcase the diversity of contemporary African art.”

Gladys Kalichini is a contemporary visual artist and researcher from Lusaka, Zambia. Her work centres around notions of erasure, memory, and representations and visibilities of women in colonial resistance histories.

Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi (Ghana) and Temitayo Ogunbiyi (Nigeria) were selected as runners-up of the Henrike Grohs Art Award and will each receive a cash prize of 5 000€.