Kapwani Kiwanga’s work traces the pervasive impact of power asymmetries by placing historic narratives in dialogue with contemporary realities, the archive, and tomorrow’s possibilities. Her work is research-driven, instigated by marginalized or forgotten histories, and articulated across a range of materials and mediums including sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance. Kiwanga co-opts the canon; she turns systems of power back on themselves, in art and in parsing broader histories. In this manner Kiwanga has developed an aesthetic vocabulary that she described as “exit strategies,” works that invite one to see things from multiple perspectives, so as to look differently at existing structures and find ways to navigate the future differently.

Kiwanga is French and Canadian, and studied Anthropology and Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal and Art at l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris. In 2022, Kiwanga received the Zurich Art Prize (CH). She was also the winner of the Marcel Duchamp Prize (FR) in 2020, Frieze Artist Award (USA), and the annual Sobey Art Award (CA) in 2018. She represents Canada at the 60th International Venice Art Biennale in 2024.

Solo exhibitions include Copenhagen Contemporary (DN); Serralves Foundation, Porto (PT); Bozar, Brussels (BE); Remai Modern, Saskatoon (CA); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (DE); Capc, Bordeaux (FR); MOCA, Toronto (CA); Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (CH) ; New Museum, New York (USA); State of Concept, Athens (GR); Moody Center for the Arts, Austin (USA); Haus der Kunst, Munich (DE); Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel/Bienne (CHE); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (USA); Albertinum museum, Dresden (DE); Esker Foundation, Calgary (CA); Power Plant, Toronto (CA); Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago (USA); South London Gallery, London (UK) and Jeu de Paume, Paris (FR) among others. She is represented by Galerie Poggi, Paris; Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Cape Town and London and Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin.