Donna Kukama (b. 1981, Mahikeng, South Africa) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans performance, video, text, sound, and multimedia installations. She employs performance art as a critical tool for research and storytelling, presenting works that weave together historical narratives, fictitious elements, and fleeting moments of protest. Her practice challenges traditional methods of archiving and narrating histories, emphasizing perspectives from the Global South and offering alternative value systems.
Kukama’s works often manifest as “gestures of poetry” with political intent, aiming to destabilize dominant narratives and insert overlooked voices into historical discourse. Her performances, described as undisciplined and experimental, occupy public and institutional spaces to critique sociopolitical structures and raise questions about memory, identity, and power.
Through her installations and performances, Kukama introduces moments of strangeness into familiar contexts, creating spaces where minor histories and fragile memories coexist with broader narratives. Her use of unconventional materials and ephemeral actions allows her to explore themes of visibility, resistance, and impermanence.
Kukama has exhibited and performed at prestigious international venues, including the Tate Modern (London), Wits Art Museum (Johannesburg), and Iziko South African National Gallery (Cape Town). She has participated in major events such as the Venice Biennale, São Paulo Biennial, and Moscow Biennale.
In 2014, she received the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Performance Art. Currently, Kukama serves as a professor of Contemporary Art at the Academy of Media Arts (KHM) in Cologne, Germany. Her work is included in significant public collections, such as the Johannesburg Art Gallery and Wits Art Museum.
Kukama’s art challenges the limits of documentation and memory, affirming her place as a key figure in contemporary art’s evolving dialogue on history and identity.
