04 February - 05 March 2022
Goodman Gallery, London
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“A Healing Path for Phantom Pain”, Kiluanji Kia Henda’s first solo exhibition in the UK brings together bodies of work continuing the artist’s exploration of collective memory through engagement with landscapes and public structures.
The title of the exhibition couples the painful realities of the past — which present themselves as ghostly recurrences — with the hopeful possibility of recovery. More pointedly, it reflects on the history of Angola through a critique of structures of power that continue colonial legacies. The artist explains; “On the street where I grew up in Luanda, there was a school, a cinema, a police station, and a Catholic church next to an Orthopaedic centre – each of which played a part in the colonial strategy. I decided to focus on the Catholic church and the Orthopaedic centre to think through Western influences in Angola’s history and its devastating conflict.”
The 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death in 2017 coincided with Kia Henda’s return to Luanda from New York — a trip during which Diana’s humanitarian efforts were advertised broadly in international media. Part of Diana’s efforts included a visit to Angola, in 1997, where she lobbied against the military industry which benefited from the terror of war, particularly in the production and distribution of anti-personnel landmines. Through photographs, a video installation, as well as new sculptural installations, Kia Henda reflects on the continued effects of active landmines in Angola. A vestige of the brutal civil war, anti-personnel landmines continue to threaten the lives of civilians across the country.