At the 32nd Annual National Women’s Convening in Chaco, Argentina (October 2017); our second time at this event.
Who are we
Kukily was born during the 31st Annual National Women’s Convening (Argentina)—an independent political forum bringing together 60,000+ women/trans/non-binary folks— in 2016, where members Colleen Ndemeh Fitzgerald, Jasmin Sánchez, Julia Cohen Ribeiro, and Lina Lasso met for the first time. This 31st edition was also the first time the “Afrodescendent Women” workshop existed; it was no coincidence that we all met here.
Our different nationalities and diverse personal histories combine to create a common vision around topics such afrodescendent identity, the place of afrodescendent women in socitiety, and the necessity to express ourselves through art.
We are based in Argentina, Brasil, and Germany, working with a truly global perspective of the African Diaspora.
What we do
The collective creates interdisciplinary work through the mediums of installation, performance, curation, community-engaged art, and video/short film.
We combine our individual and shared experience in theater, film, performance art, dance, audiovisual work, music, community-organizing and scholarship. We use the intersection of these languages to investigate new aesthetics that fully represent us.
We are currently working “locally” in the three countries we reside in, as well as transnationally. Feel free to reach out at colectivokukily@gmail.com. Kukily is officially registered as a Civil Association (Associación Civil/NGO) in Argentina and can received grants and partnerships through this entity.
Solo exhibition “XTRÆ, BA25 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2025 (PH CarCg)
Current work
XTRÆNCESTRAL is a multidisciplinary installation and performance that that proposes an afrofuture built from Indigenous, ancestral knowledge. For this project our afrofuture comes in the form of a spaceship that travels to the present commanded by XTRÆNCESTORS--archetypal ancestral entities of the future. These entities give us glimpses of what the future holds and invite us to take part in constructing it. The work centers local perspectives by inviting audiences to activate the installation constantly.
It was commissioned by the Lagos Biennial and premiered there in March 2024 with support from the We Are Family Foundation and Puffin Foundation.
Residency support from PACT Zollverein (Germany), Casa Sofia (Argentina), and Mariana Pacheco & Federico Bejerano (Argentina).
(Lagos Biennial 2024, photos Chioke Ianson)
Work created and conceptualized by Kukily, afrofeminist arts collective
Members of Kukily: Colleen Ndemeh Fitzgerald, Julia Cohen Ribeiro, Jasmin Sánchez, Lina Lasso
Performers in the live and audiovisual pieces: Colleen Ndemeh Fitzgerald, Julia Cohen Ribeiro, Jasmin Sánchez, Lina Lasso & Florencia Gomes
Architect: Florencia Gomes
Sound design: Nancla
Video art and 2D collage: Collaboration between Kukily & Tamara Moura Costa
Editing of video art: Tamara Moura Costa
Camera assistants: Ngwazile, Renata
Archival videos: Colleen Ndemeh Fitzgerald, Tamara Moura Costa
Exhibitions / Performances:
Solo Exhibition “XTRÆ, BA25”, Buenos Aires, Argentina Dec 2025
Solo Exhibition, BARAZANI.berlin, Germany July 2025
Group Exhibition “Ladino-Amefricanas”, SESC Nova Iguaçu, Brasil Mar 2025
Group Exhibition “Memories y Resistencia”, Centro Queretano, Mexico Sept 2024
Group Exhibition Pavilion, Lagos Biennial, Nigeria Feb 2024
Solo Exhibition “XTRÆ, BA25”, Buenos Aires, Argentina Dec 2025. (PH CarCg)
Celebrate their existence performance in Buenos Aires, Argentina 2022
Negra, negra, negra soy performance in Buenos Aires, Argentina 2018 (Photo by Malu Campello)
Bustos performance at the National History Museum of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Performers: Lina Lasso & Aylee Ibañez (Photo by Florencia Mendilarzo)
Past work
Celebrate their existence, a performance intervention in public space.
We say the names and tell the stories of our Afrodescendant ancestors, performing a ritual of collective memory. By bringing them into the public space we fight against their erasure. We celebrate their existence.
Espacio EK, Buenos Aires, Argentina Oct 2025
Festival Editorial Migra, Buenos Aires, Argentina Apr 2025
Hartford Public Library, Connecticut, USA June 2022
Festival Editorial Migra, Buenos Aires, Argentina Mar 2022
Women’s Day March, Buenos Aires, Argentina Mar 2022
International Human Rights Film Festival Argentina, HYBRID June 2021
Centro Cultural Kirchner, Buenos Aires, Argentina Mar 2020
Negra, negra, negra soy, a community-engagement and performance project, supported by the Connecticut Office of the Arts and Hartford Foundation.
We’ve created an oasis—a sort of non-place—that exists to be inhabited by the experiences of Afrodescendent women. Afrodescendent women joining together and occupying the space with their political and artistic vision. We pay homage to Afroperuvian poet, Victoria Santa Cruz, and yell out together “negra, negra, negra soy” (Black, Black, I am Black).
Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, USA Feb 2023
Kamora’s Cultural Center, Hartford, Connecticut, USA Aug 2022
Online w/Organization of American States March 2021
Online w/FreeSkewl Dance Platform Feb 2021
Centro Cultural de la Memoria Conti, Buenos Aires, Argentina Nov 2019
Centro Cultural de la Memoria Conti, Buenos Aires, Argentina Nov 2018
Bustos, a multimedia performance piece.
“We occupy the city with our bodies, the bodies of women of African descent. We are becoming the new symbols of strength and transformation, and a better future” (a piece created in response to the monuments to whiteness in our cities)
“Children of the Diaspora” IV & V, events produced by Kukily, virtual 2020
Night of the Museums, National Museum of History, Argentina Nov 2019
Children of the Diaspora I, event produced by Kukily, Buenos Aires, Argentina Oct 2018
LODO Festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina May 2018
“Santa Performera” Performance & Gender Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina Oct 2017