Pélagie Gbaguidi (b. 1965, Dakar, Senegal), describes herself as a contemporary ‘griot’ – a West African storyteller – which she defines as someone who functions as an intermediary between individual memory and ancestral past. Her work is an anthology of the signs and traces of trauma and is centred on colonial and postcolonial history. She recontextualises archives and official histories to reveal processes of forgetting. The materially embodied images created by Gbaguidi through painting, drawing, performance and installation seek to break out of binary thinking, archetypes and simplifications.

Biennales and major international exhibitions include: Berlin Biennale (2020), Lubumbashi Biennale (2019), Dakar Biennale (2004, 2006, 2008, 2014 and 2018) and documenta 14 (2017). Her work has featured in group shows at Centre Pompidou-Metz, WIELS (Brussels), Musée Rochechouart, Middelheimmuseum (Antwerp), Stadtmuseum (Munich), MMK (Frankfurt), and the National Museum of African Art – Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.).

Collections include: Artothèque, Saint-Denis, Réunion, France; Casa África, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain; CNAP Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris, France; Holocaust Memorial Foundation, Chicago, United States of America; KANAL-Centre Pompidou, Brussels, Belgium; Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett, permanent loan from the Hüni-Michel-Stiftung, Basel, Switzerland; M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art / City of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium; Memorial ACTe, Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, France; and the Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium
S.M.A.K. Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium

Gbaguidi lives and works in Brussels.