About

Anguezomo Nathalie Mba Bikoro
(Gabon | 1985)

"Risk is essential in the concept & practice of democracy because it defines the moment when one chooses to make images or chooses to live them"

Bikoro is a conceptual artist from the region of Woleu-Ntem in North Gabon and is presently based in Berlin. A 10 year long battle with Leukaemia Cancer during her youth transposed her into different environments and languages in the Netherlands, France, UK, Brazil and Germany inevitably challenging her political positions, citizenship and feeding into her transdisciplinary practice as a visual activist, writer and teacher.
Her artistic practices move between performance, archaeology, video & sound, politically and socially engaged international/local collaborations—aiming to facilitate long-term dialogue through artistic research. With projects frequently community-based, Bikoro addresses collective narratives on identity, memory, dialogue, history, and polylingualism. Through her experience of inter- and trans- continental migration, Bikoro has developed a sensibility for cross-border interculturalism and the plurality of languages. She deconstructs these subjects in order to newly construct past and present mythologies by taking up multiple forms of media production and intervention in public space.

Bikoro uses live art practices and digital photography story-telling to create living and performative archives contesting the nature of our cultures, histories and identity. Her practice works on the functions of performing archives contesting the purpose of our cultures, histories and identity through decolonial cannibal aesthetics. Her research is a time-machine reacting to sense-memory and political landscapes to create Human Monuments about spaces and peoples across all nations to re-invent memorial post colonial gestures towards freedom. These narratives are based on true stories and meander with visual fictions. Her practices often engages communities interactively by bridging societal constructs through educational theory and practice workshops in Decolonial Histories through Performance using sonorous archives, notably form colonial POW's between 1915-1942.

She is Associate Lecturer in Philosophy and Arts History and Curator of Performance Programmes at Savvy Contemporary gallery in Berlin. She is director of Squat Museum in Gabon and Artistic Director of Squat Monument & Future Monuments. Her contributions include in Dak'art Biennale Senegal (2012); Smithsonian Museum of African Art Washington DC (2013); Tiwani Contemporary London (2012); Kalao Pan African Galleries Bilbao (2014); 798 Art District Gallery Beijing (2015); Museum of African Art Johannesburg (2011); Michael Stevenson Gallery Cape Town (2011); Tate Britain London (2009); Pitts Rivers Oxford Museum UK (2014); Bedfordbury Gallery London (2010); South London Gallery (2010); and Art15 Fair London (2015).
She is the recipient of several awards including BBK Artists Award (2017), British Arts Council (2016), Senats Abteilung Kulturelle Angelegenheiten (2016), Goethe Institut South Africa (2016), Fondation Blachère and Afrique Soleil Mali for Best Artist awarded at the 10th Dakar Biennale (2012), Best Discovery Award at New York Cutlog (2013), Ercillas Prize for Best Exhibition Award at FIG Bilbao (2014), HANGAR Research Fellowship Lisbon/Angola (2016-219). She was recently speaker in the TAZ.Lab Open Conferences at Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt presenting Decolonial Cities. She is also part of the Goethe Institute’s programme Episodes of the South in São Paulo.

Other project links;
www.squatmonument.com

Awards
2017 BBK Artist Recipient Award | Berlin, Germany
2017 Artist Research Fellowship | Hebbel Am Huffer | Berlin, Germany
2016 Goethe Institut Curator's Grant Award
2016 Senats Abteilung Kulturelle Angelegenheiten | Berlin Germany
2016 Arts Council England Artist Award
2016 Guis Sou Me Le Mbao (I Do Not See You at Mbao) | Apexart International Franchise Program Award
2016 HANGAR Research Fellowship Award | Lisbon, Portugal
2016 Goethe Institut South Africa
2016 TURN Award | Berlin, Germany
2016 Rathaus Schoöneberg Dezentrale KulturArbeit Bezirksamt Tempelhöf-Shöneberg | Berlin, Germany
2015 Arts Studio Research Grant | District Malzfabrik Berlin | Germany
2015 KunstBildende Award | Germany
2015 Performancear O Morir | Norogachi, Mexico
2014 Ercillas Prize for Best Exhibition Award | FIG Bilbao
2014 Manière Noire Artist Residency | Berlin Germany
2014 Savvy Contemporary Artist Residency | Berlin Germany
2013 Best Discovery Award | New York Cutlog
2013 La Otra Biennale Award | curated by Gabriela Salgado | Bogota Colombia
2013 Atelier Sahm Award | Brazzaville DRCongo
2012 Soleil D’Afrique Mali Award | Bamako, Mali
2012 Fondation Blachère Award | Apt, France
2011 Best Performance Art Award in Finland | presented by Presentatiioo
2011 Perpendicular Casa e Rua Award | Belo Horizonte, Brazil
2011 NSB Best Artist of the Year Award | Norbotten, Sweden
2009 Doctoral Research Fellowship | Greenwich University | London
2006 Stanley Picker Gallery Research Scholarship Award | Kingston, London

*full CV must be requested privately

Anguezomo Mba Bikoro