Ato Malinda lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. She has a Masters of Fine Art (MFA) from Transart Institute, New York and is a PhD candidate at Leiden University and the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. She works in the mediums of performance, drawing, painting, installation and video, as well as has a growing interest in object-making. Her previous work has focused on Afrocentricity based in a postcolonial context. Within this context, Malinda has focused on the hybrid nature of African identity, contesting notions of authenticity. Through her research, Malinda has discovered numerous histories of intermingling of Africans through colonialism, but also trade, with other cultures. In addition, Malinda focuses on ontology of the female experience pertaining to Africa, examining gender and ideologies surrounding the history and current state of gender and sexuality in Africa. She has exhibited at Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK) in Berlin (2011), Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main (2014), the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution (2015), Salon Urbain de Douala in Cameroon (2010) and the Karen Blixen Museum in Copenhagen (2010).
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2013 GAMES, Savvy Contemporary, Berlin
2011 Incommensurable Identities, im Rahmen von IMAGINE – towards an ecoaesthetic, The Aarhus Art Building, Aarhus
2009 Dans Mon Brun, Doual’art, Douala
2009 Solo exhibition at Goethe Institute Nairobi: Looking at Art; Looking at Africa; Looking at Art, Prison Sex II.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2012 Untitled January 2012, Roots Contemporary, Brüssel
2011 the Urban Cultures of Global Prayers, Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK), Berlin
2011 One Minutes Africa, at Townhouse Gallery, Cairo
2011 FOCUS 11, Contemporary Art Africa, Art 42 Basel
2011 Fertile, South London Gallery, CONTEMPORARY AFRICA ON SCREEN, London
2011 Kaddou Diggen, La Paroles aux Femmes, Women Speak Out, Galerie Le Manège, Dakar
2010 Salon Urbain de Douala, SUD2010: Douala Triennial, Douala
2010 II Trienal Luanda 2010. Luanda
2010 My World IMAGES, Contemporary Arts Festival 2010, Copenhagen, Denmark. Rebuilding, Remembering & Renewing, Karen Blixen Museum, Rungstedlund
FAVT: Future Africa Visions in Time 