Grada Kilomba's Decolonial Practice Bridges Plantation Memories with New Installation The Boat

In 2008, Grada Kilomba, a Portuguese artist residing in Berlin, released *Plantation Memories: Episodes of Everyday Racism* for the International Literature Festival. This work explores the dehumanization of Black individuals stemming from the Atlantic slave trade, employing psychoanalytic techniques and drawing on the ideas of thinkers such as Frantz Fanon. Transitioning from academia to contemporary art, Kilomba produced the theatre series KOSMOS2 (2015–17) at the Maxim Gorki Theatre. Her exhibition at the 2016 Bienal de São Paulo showcased *The Desire Project* and the trilogy *A World of Illusions* (2019). Currently, she is working on *The Boat*, a clay installation that delves into the concealed histories of slavery, alongside an opera with Neo Muyanga. Kilomba's creations confront universal narratives, linking historical trauma to contemporary movements like Black Lives Matter.