Ato Malinda


Ato Malinda is a multidisciplinary performance artist.

Career

Ato Malinda was born in 1981 in Nairobi. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Transart Institute in New York. Her work explores the facets of African identity and authenticity in mediums including performance, music, drawing and painting, installation, ceramics, and video. She focuses on gender and female sexuality, especially the stories of LGBTQ communities, and in the past has focused on the representation of African objects in Western museums.
At the 2010 SUD triennial in Douala, Cameroon, Malinda performed a piece on the myth of the water goddess Mami Wata in the mangroves of the Douala's Wouri River. The performance, On fait ensemble, was both observed and recorded. In 2016, she was an awardee at the National Museum of African Art's inaugural African Art Awards and highlighted by The Wall Street Journal as an emerging artist.
Malinda is based in Rotterdam.