Joana Choumali Ivory Coast, b. 1974

Born in 1974 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, where she is still based today, Joana Choumali is a visual artist who studied graphic arts in Casablanca, Morocco. Much of her work focuses on Africa and the innumerable cultures that surround her. Through her practice, she explores her own assumptions and continually questions the worldviews she has inherited. In her recent works, Choumali embroiders directly onto photographic prints, extending the act of image-making through a slow and meditative gesture. These works are enriched by her use of textiles and her sensitive approach to color.

She has been featured in major international exhibitions and festivals such as the Photoquai Biennale at the Musée du Quai Branly (France), the Tropenmuseum (Netherlands), the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA, South Africa), KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival (Japan), the Bamako International Photography Biennale (Mali), and the LagosPhoto Festival (Nigeria). In Abidjan, her work has been widely exhibited, including at the Museum of Civilizations, the Donwahi Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Rotonde des Arts, and the Palais de la Culture.

She has also participated in major international platforms, including the 57th Venice Biennale (Italy) in 2017, where she presented Translation and Adorn at the Pavilion of Côte d’Ivoire, and the 60th Venice Biennale (Italy) in 2024, as part of Passengers in Transit, a Collateral Event curated by Paula Nascimento, Oyindamola Faithful, and Roger Niyigena Karera, and organized by CCA Lagos (Nigeria) in collaboration with 193 Gallery (France).

In 2019, she was awarded the Prix Pictet for her series Ça va aller (It will be OK), becoming the first African artist to receive the prize. In 2020, she was named Robert Gardner Fellow in Photography at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, where she developed the project Yougou-Yougou (Secondhand Clothing), later presented at the Harvard Art Museums in 2025.

Her work is held in major public and private collections internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA), High Museum of Art (USA), the Victoria and Albert Museum (United Kingdom), Musée de la Photographie de Saint-Louis (Senegal), Zeitz MOCAA (South Africa), MACAAL (Morocco), the Fondation H Collection (France and Madagascar), and the Prix Pictet Collection (Switzerland), among others.