18 Verses (2022) is an installation by Grada Kilomba formed by a poem written by the artist, engraved and hand painted on burned wood pieces, immersed in a sonorous landscape space. The burning process is an ancient technique, which allows the wood to reveal its unique skin, veins and scars, a visual metaphor, which Kilomba uses to explore issues of identity, displacement and cyclical violence. In her immersive installation, Kilomba reproduces the cartography of multiple dramatic shipwrecks today, crossing the Mediterranean and the global waters.  A sonorous landscape immerses the room where human breathing negotiates its own space amidst the noise of wind and waves. The insistent repetition of sounds produced by touching or striking objects becomes a metaphor for the systemic repetition of violence and simultaneously for the prevalence of the human and the poetic.

Commissioned by Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Turin, Italy