Anawana Haloba

is the 2026 Festival Exhibition Artist

Anawana Haloba creates works that combine oral traditions, text and sound with installation, video, and performance. Her art is characterised by a poetic yet critical approach that creates an environment conducive to reflection and dialogue.

Through layered investigations of oral and material narrative traditions, Haloba weaves together stories that reveal the complexity of various forms of power structures. She combines historical sources with personal experiences, forming narratives that highlight marginalised perspectives and reveal how colonial and political histories shape our contemporary world.

The works of the Zambian-Norwegian artist have been shown in a number of national and international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2009), the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

Haloba is currently involved in a number of extensive exhibitions, including the ongoing Berlin Biennale 2025 — passing the fugitive on, and the solo exhibition "I Want to Tell You Something" that is opening at the National Museum in November 2025. She has also been nominated for the Lorck Schive Art Prize and the Artes Mundi Prize for her work.

Haloba is one of the founders of the Livingstone Office for Contemporary Arts (LoCA), which, since 2014, has functioned as an artist-initiated, non-profit library, research centre, and experimental collective platform. LoCA is currently working on the Mosi Oa Tunya Perennial, a large-scale international exhibition that will be presented in the cities of Livingstone, Zambia and Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, taking place from September 12, 2026.

“Bergen Kunsthall is enormously proud to present Anawana Haloba as Festival Exhibition Artist in 2026. We are extremely excited for visitors to experience Haloba’s unique ability to build corridors of knowledge where past, present and future are seamlessly woven together and new connections are made. Anawana Haloba’s remarkable international career is testament to an art that transcends geographical and artistic borders. She has established herself as a significant and influential voice in contemporary art, as an artist, an innovative institution builder, and as a teacher", says Kjersti Solbakken, Director of Bergen Kunsthall.

For the upcoming exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall, Anawana Haloba looks more closely at female craft traditions as a form of resistance. Haloba’s artistic practice is based on investigations into how different positions are formed and negotiated within societies with different political, social, economic, and cultural contexts. Through a close reading of the patterns, materials and methods of Tonga culture, Haloba explores connections to the political protest tapestries of the Norwegian textile artist Hannah Ryggen, where the disclosure of oppression is a leitmotif.

About the artist

Anawana Haloba was born in Livingstone, Zambia, in 1978. She resides and works both in Oslo and Livingstone. She was educated at the Evelyn Hone College of Applied Arts in Lusaka, Zambia. Haloba attained her bachelor’s degree at the Oslo Academy of Fine Arts in 2006. She took further education at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and she has participated in the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in Washington D.C. She is currently working on her PhD at the University of Bergen.

Haloba’s work has been shown in both solo and group exhibitions, including at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France; Oslo Kunstforening, Norway; GAMeC in Bergamo, Italy; SKMU Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand, Norway; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C., USA; Palais Populaire, Berlin, Germany; Rauma Biennale, Finland; ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe, Germany; Museum Berardo Collection, Lisbon, Portugal; KODE, Bergen, Norway; Venice Biennale in 2009; Sydney Biennale in 2008, Australia; Manifesta 7, Bolzano, Italy; Sharjah Biennale (2008, 2011 and 2019); as well as biennales in São Paulo (2016), Shanghai (2016), Lyon (2017), and Bucharest (2021). She has also participated in the Fellbach Triennial in 2022, Germany; MOMENTUM 12 in 2023, Norway; and SURVIVAL KIT 14 in 2023, Latvia.

Anawana Haloba is an associate professor of contemporary art specialising in decolonialization theory in artistic practice at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and she is a visiting advisor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.  

The Festival Exhibition

The Festival Exhibition is one of Norway's most important contemporary art exhibitions, and is considered one of the most prestigious commissions for a Norwegian artist. The exhibition is curated and produced by Bergen Kunsthall and has been presented concurrently with the Bergen International Festival (Festspillene) since its inception in 1953. Recent Festival Artists include Tori Wrånes (2025), Toril Johannessen (2024), Camille Norment (2023), Lene Berg (2022), Elisabeth Haarr (2021), Joar Nango (2020), Tone Vigeland (2014), Marianne Heier (2012), Leonard Rickhard (2009), Elmgreen & Dragset (2005), AK Dolven (2004), Bjarne Melgaard (2003), Olav Christopher Jenssen (2000) and Marianne Heske (1993).