Joana Choumali
Born in 1974 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Lives and works in Abidjan
Joana Choumali is a multimedia research artist from Ivory Coast that has experimented with a variety of different artistic modes mediums throughout her career. Having studied graphic design in Casablanca, Morocco, she then worked as an artistic director at an advertising agency before officially beginning her professional photography career.
Choumali’s work acts as a type of archive for the specific cultural or geographical moments that she has bore witness to - series such as Traduction, Adorn and Ça va Aller demonstrate this. In 2016, Choumali introduced textile and embroidery into her work, combined with photography she transforms each scene she captures into a dream-like
fantasy.
Following the attack on Grand Bassam in 2016, Choumali captured a series of images of photographs at the resort, a place she previously has associated with childhood memories and family gatherings. The tragic event led Choumali to the idea of embroidering these images; a slow and meditative gesture she performs as a means to offer tribute to the victims and heal the wounds that were inflicted.
Since 2000, Choumali has participated in a variety of individual and collective exhibitions in France, the UK and across the African continent.
Choumali’s Adorn series explored the reinterpretation of European beauty standards by contemporary Black African women and presented at the Ivory Coast Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017. Choumali was further awarded the prestigious Prix Pictet for this series in October 2019.