The Power Plant

Kapwani Kiwanga has developed a prolific artistic career since her first major institutional exhibition in Canada at The Power Plant in 2017. Born in 1978, she grew up in Hamilton and Brantford, Ontario, with a “thirst and desire to visit other places.” Since 2005, she has been living and working in Paris.

Interestingly, Kiwanga did not plan on becoming an artist. Her interest in learning about diverse histories, cultural traditions, and belief systems led her to study Anthropology and Comparative Religions at McGill University in Montréal. While finishing her degree, she realized that she wanted her research and academic work to connect with audiences in creative ways.

Seeing how filmmaking could reach a wider audience, Kiwanga decided to move to Scotland and become a freelance documentary filmmaker. In an interview with Art Basel, she explained that “there wasn’t any particular author or artist that really shifted things for me. What happens is about intuition, feeling, and my observations.” She pursued two post-graduate degrees at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (National School of Fine Arts) in Paris, followed by the National Studio of Contemporary Arts in Les Fresnoy, northern France.

Today, Kiwanga continues to translate her archival research with an interdisciplinary approach to art making—ranging from sculpture, video, performance, and installations—to address systems of power or environmental issues.

In 2017, The Power Plant was thrilled to showcase her first major institutional solo exhibition in Canada, A Wall is Just a Wall (January 28–May 14, 2023). Through this show, she invited visitors to consider how architectural and interior spaces can be designed to include and exclude certain members of society.

During this time, Kiwanga was researching the history of disciplinary architecture and hostile urban design strategies that have been used to purposefully guide or regulate one’s behaviour. In one of her installations, pink-blue (2017), visitors enter a long hallway where half of the space is painted the colour Baker-Miller Pink and the other half is illuminated with fluorescent blue lights.

Since the 1980s, this pink colour has been used in penitentiaries since it was believed to have a tranquillizing effect on aggressive behaviour and potential violence. However, according to a study in 2015, the researchers did not find any cognitive differences when assessing inmates within white versus Baker-Miller Pink painted prison cells. They also recorded that this specific colour did not have a strong effect on their emotions or reduce hostility, as past studies proposed.

In addition, Kiwanga brought attention to the increase in fluorescent blue lights being used in public spaces to discourage drug injections. Based on a study conducted by the Harm Reduction Journal in 2013, if people are unable to see their veins under blue light in places like public washrooms, then the injection could be more likely to damage the body or lead to an overdose.

Through this exhibition, Kiwanga encouraged people to think about what it means to have agency in a space and become more attuned to the subtle and forceful influences that we encounter in the built environment.

In her recent exhibition, Remediation (February 24–July 23, 2023) at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Toronto, Kiwanga developed artistic interventions that explore new ways of understanding how we protect and give agency to natural ecosystems. She created a number of installations and sculptures that introduce spaces for plant life to thrive and remind people of their powerful properties that help detoxify toxic environments.

Many of her artworks also consider how nature has been resilient after colonization and exploitation in the past and present. In doing so, Kiwanga invites audiences to re-examine what it means for humans to intervene in the natural world and how we can build restorative practices rather than harmful ones.

In 2022, her artwork was included in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale, and in 2024, Kiwanga will be representing Canada at their national pavilion. Significantly, she is the first black woman artist selected for the country’s pavilion. Her work will be curated by Gaëtane Verna, former Director & Artistic Director at The Power Plant (2012–22).

While we wait in anticipation for what the artist will once again bring to the international stage, Verna reminds us of what is at the heart of the artist’s practice: “Kapwani Kiwanga delves into the archives of the world and conducts in-depth research that is woven elegantly throughout her artworks. She is interested in the role of art as a catalyst for revealing and addressing alternative and often silenced, marginalized sociopolitical narratives that are part of our shared histories.”

Bibliography

Abboud, Leila. “Plants, poisons and power – the art of Kapwani Kiwanga.” Financial Times. September 17, 2021.

Crabtree, Alexis, Gareth Mercer, Robert Horan, Shannon Grant, Tracy Tan, and Jane A. Buxton. “A Qualitative Study of the Perceived Effects of Blue Lights in Washrooms on People Who Use Injection Drugs” Harm Reduction Journal 10, no. 1 (2013): 1-8.

Durón, Maximilíano. “Rising Star Kapwani Kiwanga to Represent Canada at 2024 Venice Biennale.” Artnews. January 26, 2023.

Genschow, Oliver, Thomas Noll, Michaela Wänke, and Robert Gersbach. “Does Baker-Miller Pink Reduce Aggression in Prison Detention Cells? A Critical Empirical Examination.” Psychology, Crime & Law 21, no. 5 (2015): 482–89

MacLeod, Erin. “Kapwani Kiwanga: An Artist Anthropologist.” Canadian Art. November 7, 2016.

Sherwin, Skye. “How I became an artist: Kapwani Kiwanga.” Art Basel Stories.