Lerato Shadi

Lerato Shadi’s work challenges common assumptions, critiquing Western notions of history and making visible that which is invisible or overlooked. Working across video, performance and installation, and often employing repetitive processes, she argues the importance of centring – not just including – the marginalised body as a main figure of narrative experience. By placing herself at the forefront of her work, Shadi deals with the politics of cultural erasure and structural exclusion. Shadi (born in Mahikeng, lives and works in Berlin) studied visual art at the University of Johannesburg and earned an M.A. in Spatial Strategies from Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin in 2018. She received the Alumni Dignitas Award from the University of Johannesburg in 2016 and was a fellow of the Villa Romana Prize in Florence in 2018. Her works have been shown internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions, i.a., blank projects, Cape Town (solo, 2025); Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2024 + 2023), SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2023); Goethe Institute India, Pune and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2024 + 2022); the Palais de la Porte Dorée and Musée d’art moderne, both in Paris (2021); KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin (solo, 2020) and Kunstverein, Hamburg (solo, 2020); the 14th Curitiba Biennial in Brazil and SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2019); Kunsthal Amersfoort, the Netherlands and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town (2018). Her video work Mabogo Dinku was part of the 2020 Artists’ Film International programme organised by Whitechapel Gallery, London, and was presented in art institutions around the globe. In spring 2022 her monograph was published by Archive Books, Berlin.