About
Ava Grauls, Artist & Performer
Ava Grauls is a South African / Belgian multi-format conceptual artist based in London. She has lived between South Africa, Swaziland, Belgium, London, Scotland, and Japan. She experienced the end of Apartheid and the first democratic election in Johannesburg in 1994 before moving to London in 1998. Her work focuses closely on her experiences through these multiple migrations.
Her practice is currently investigating post-colonial identity mechanisms within the context of a shifting national identity. ‘Land sale’ is her current solo exhibition that explores themes of unconscious bias and priviledge within the processes of invasions and territorial map-making.
Grauls’ has exhibited in Hiroshima, London, Edinburgh and Dundee. In 2019 she joined the Studio Kura residency in Japan after being awarded the Moira McGregor Bursary. She won the 2021 RSA David Mitchie Travel Award and John Milne Purvis prize in Scotland. Her film ‘Obliterated’ was selected for the Lisbon Art Weekend 2022. She is currently completing her MA at the Royal College of Art, London.
“In colonial history, you are asking yourself to question the apparent neutrality of knowledge, including the instruments of knowledge, languages, spellings, maps, and library organisations, and you are also asking yourself, “can a people change halfway?”
Timothy Snyder 2022
Lisbon Art weekend selection 2022 : Obliterated
Ava Grauls 