Khaleb Brooks

Khaleb Brooks is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and writer exploring blackness, transness and collective memory. Meshing the black queer figure with surreal environments in paintings and entering transcendental states in performance they force their audience to confront the literal and social death of black people globally.

Over the last year Khaleb has been an artist in residence at the Tate Modern, where they used the museums collection to lead weekly workshops and create work around the Trans Atlantic slave trade. Performing in the 2019 Venice Biennale and consistently pushing the boundaries of art as a tool to politically engage, Khaleb continues to exhibit globally: Institute of Contemporary Art (2020 and 2018), Schwules Museum in Berlin (2019), Gazelli Art House in London (2019), GlogauAir in Berlin (2019), 198 Contemporary in London (2017) and We- Dey Gallery in Vienna (2018).

Prior to working as an artist full time, Khaleb was an International Development practitioner where they worked with the United Nations and a multitude of NGO’s throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia. They have taken their passion for social justice and consistently seek innovative ways to bring that work to the creative sector. Khaleb, originally from Chicago, is inspired by the perseverance of black families in overcoming poverty, addiction, abuse and gang violence as well as their own experiences of being transgender. Khaleb graduated from SOAS with an MSc in Violence Conflict and Development in 2015.