Studio Lakala is the holistic space that begins to represent the artist and researcher Euridice Zaituna Kala This platform assembles not only her work, but the artist's daily practice. As an evolving identity Kala has decided that the act of sharing should be representative of the invitations, the offerings, the work and her mind-space.
SEA(E)SCAPES DNA: DON'T (N)EVER ASK
The Sea(E)scapes DNA don’t (n)ever ask project began in 2015, motivated by the discovery of the wreck of the slave ship São José Paquete-d’África cast out the same year off the Cape, in Cape Town in South Africa. Euridice Zaituna Kala then begins to retrace the route taken by the ship: leaving Ilha de Mozambique, a historic crossroads in the Indian Ocean from where Portuguese and French administered their colonies, it disappeared in 1794 with more than 400 slaves on board... 210 children, women and men perish. Others were re-captured, and taken to the initial destination: São Luis do Maranhão in Brazil.
The story of this ship escape(s)d Mozambicans. Frustrated at only having access to archives delivered through the Portuguese prism alone, it be- came urgent for the artist to reinvest this story. Started in Lisbon, her research work took Kala to Ilha de Mozambique and then to Cape Town. This deployment in space became an act of resistance: by surveying a strip of this coastline, Euridice Zaituna Kala revived this hitherto anecdotal memory. Without wanting to focus solely on a history of slavery, Sea(E)scapes also questions the mechanics of contemporary memory.