In her first comprehensive exhibition in Scandinavia, the renowned artist Kapwani Kiwanga (b. 1978) explores hidden social mechanisms and power relations with monumental installations created from plants, foliage, sand, colors, and light. Serious themes lurk just beneath the surface in Kiwanga’s seductively beautiful works, where decorative plants tell toxic stories of power imbalances, colors harbor manipulative effects, and light is examined as a political instrument.

The exhibition spans CC’s two largest halls, covering 1600 m² as a fluid movement created by Kiwanga’s elegant play with materials and their secrets. With a penchant for experiences that are overwhelming but not static, she uses fluidity as a sculptural principle. Her work is permeated by an idea of continuous recreation and adaptability.

As a trained anthropologist and religious scholar, Kiwanga examines with her poetic works how objects are detached from their original function and gain new life in the exhibition space – where they are handled, displayed, and distanced from their everyday use and their place in production.

Kapwani Kiwanga masters aesthetic seduction. Her works allow for going beyond sensory and visual pleasure, as upon closer inspection, they reveal historical sociopolitical dimensions that double the impact and give Kiwanga’s works a lasting effect.

The exhibition is created in collaboration with the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg in Germany. It is accompanied by an extensive, richly illustrated catalog in Danish and English with texts by Cecilia Alemani, Uta Ruhkamp, Julie Pellegrin, Andreas Beitin, and CC’s director Marie Laurberg. It is distributed internationally by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König and sold in CC’s shop.

In the exhibition The Length of the Horizon, a delicate flower sprouts on a pedestal bathed in a luminous yellow spotlight painted around it. The bright yellow color not only refers to the sunlight necessary for plant growth but also to the stereotypical depiction of delightful tropical sunshine. At the center, Kiwanga’s two paper versions of the peacock flower (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) bloom with its characteristic green leaves, orange-yellow flowers, and long red stamens.

They are meticulously preserved in two different growth stages, thematizing its contrasting uses throughout history. The decorative plant’s medicinal effect has been used as a means of resistance and self-determination by people under slavery and by indigenous peoples in Suriname, as it is said to have abortive qualities.

Beautifully crafted in paper, the work simultaneously references a favored hobby among the upper class in Victorian England, where wealthy women busied themselves with making paper flowers for decorations, allowing the “exotic” to be brought home and displayed. By focusing on the ornamental plant, Kiwanga highlights the stark contrasts in living conditions between women in colonizing England and women living in a colonized area like Suriname.

Another work raises two walls of colors that together form a 16-meter-long corridor. A recurring theme in Kiwanga’s works is disciplinary architecture—spaces designed to influence people’s behavior. In the large installation *pink-blue*, one part is painted with Baker-Miller Pink, which is said to help reduce stress and lower heart rates. It has been used to calm prison inmates, among other things. The other part is bathed in fluorescent blue light, which is used in public restrooms to make veins less visible, making it difficult to inject drugs. The light indirectly serves as a tool that monitors public spaces. In the installation, the exhibition’s guests are exposed to these influences and can experience their disorienting effects firsthand.

Kapwani Kiwanga (b. 1978 in Hamilton, Canada) is a French and Canadian artist who lives and works in Paris. Kiwanga studied anthropology and religious studies at McGill University in Montreal and art at l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris.

In her work, Kiwanga traces the extensive effects of power asymmetries by placing historical narratives in dialogue with contemporary realities, archives, and future possibilities. Her works are research-driven, rooted in marginalized and forgotten histories, articulated across various materials and media, including sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance. Kiwanga has taken on the canonical. In her art and in analyses of broader histories, she turns power systems against themselves. In this way, Kiwanga has developed an aesthetic language that she describes as “exit strategies”—works that invite us to view things from multiple perspectives to gain a different understanding of existing structures and to find new ways to navigate the future.

Kapwani Kiwanga has exhibited at some of the world’s leading art institutions and is the recipient of the prestigious Prix Marcel Duchamp. In 2024, she will represent Canada in the country’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

In 2022, Kiwanga received the Zurich Art Prize and has also been awarded the French Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2020, the American Frieze Artist Award, and the annual Canadian Sobey Art Award, both in 2018. She represents Canada at this year’s Venice Biennale. Kiwanga has had solo exhibitions at the Serralves Foundation in Porto, Bozar in Brussels, Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Capc in Bordeaux, MOCA in Toronto, Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich, New Museum in New York, State of Concept in Athens, Moody Center for the Arts in Austin, Haus der Kunst in Munich, Kunsthaus Pasquart in Biel/Bienne, MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, Albertinum Museum in Dresden, Esker Foundation in Calgary, Power Plant in Toronto, Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago, South London Gallery in London, and Jeu de Paume in Paris. She is represented by Galerie Poggi in Paris, Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and London, and Galerie Tanja Wagner in Berlin.