Bio
Dzifa Peters Ph.D. is a German-Ghanaian visual artist and researcher. She studied Fine Arts at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and Postgraduate Media Arts at Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM). She completed her doctorate on Afrodiasporic identities and visual representation within the Ph.D. Program in Culture Studies at The Lisbon Consortium at Universidade Católica Portuguesa, in a joint degree with Justus-Liebig Universität and the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) in Giessen, funded by FCT (Fundaçao para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal). Dzifa Peters is a junior researcher at the Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC).
Dzifa currently works on photography, memory and Afrodiasporic Identities in the context of postmigration in Portugal, as a research fellow at the Postdoc-Fellowship Program for Integral Human Development (DHI) at Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Lisbon.
Artistic Practice
In her artistic practice, Dzifa Peters examines forms of cultural identity and their representations. She works with the media photography, photomontage, with sound and video works, texts and installations.
Her work deals with the experience of transitory switches between different cultural perspectives, identities and their representations. She examines intercultural visualities, as well as underlying conditions within socio-cultural systems. Questions of cultural identity are therefore of concern to her, as are global developments - aspects of territory, globalisation, migration and postcolonial discourses. Her work is project oriented. As an artist who grew up in two different cultures (Germany and Ghana), she increasingly uses autobiographical material in an autofictional manner to negotiate collective topics.
She participated in various group exhibitions such as KIT (Kunst im Tunnel), Gallery M29 Cologne and received several project grants including DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), Ministry for Families, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, and currently.
Research Work
Her research fields include postcolonial and decolonial studies, migration studies, memory studies, performativity studies, and visual culture studies. She also includes art-based research into her scientific work by using hybrid methods in which her artistic practice becomes part of knowledge production and scientific endeavours.
CV
Dzifa Peters Ph.D. – Visual Artist and Researcher
EDUCATION
Universidade Católica Portuguesa, The Lisbon Consortium Ph.D. in Culture Studies, Double Degree in Cotutelle with Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Supervised by Prof. Isabel Capeloa Gil, Prof. Michael Basseler 2018-2023.
KHM – Kunsthochschule für Mdien/ Academy of Media Arts Cologne, MA/ Postgraduate Diploma in Media Arts, with Prof. Beate Gütschow, Prof. Lilian Haberer, Prof. Marcel Odenbach 2017.
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf Diploma in Fine Arts, with Prof. Thomas Grünfeld and Prof. Rita McBride Master Student with Prof. Rita McBride 2014.
FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS AND AWARDS
Publication fund of the women* promotion program “Career key: Publishing and Peer Review" from the Giessen Graduate Centre for Social Sciences, Business, Economics and Law (GGS) at Justus-Liebig-University Giessen 2025.
"Thinking Photography" Award 2024 by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie e.V. (DGPh) for doctoral thesis in Culture Studies "Tropes of Polarity: Visual Representation and Afrodiasporic Identities” https://www.deutscheboersephotographyfoundation.org/downloads/Media_Release_DGPh_Awards_winners_en_final.pdf
Postdoc-Fellowship Program in Integral Human Development at Cados, Católica Doctoral School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa 2024-2026.
CECC - Research Centre for Communication and Culture Travel Fund for NeMLA Convention 2022, Baltimore 2022.
FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal Mixed Scholarship for Justus-Liebig- Universität Giessen 2022.
FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Portugal 4-year Doctoral Research Scholarship 2018.
HANGAR, Lisbon Artist Residency 2017.
DAAD, Germany
Project Grant for Ghana 2016.
Ministry for Families, Children, Youth, Culture and Sports NRW Travel Grant for Ghana 2015.
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
Master Student Award from Prof. Rita McBride 2014.
Kunstverein Düsseldorf
Travel Grant for Los Angeles, with Rita McBride Class, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf 2013.
Alfred-Krupp-Stiftung Essen Travel Grant for Madrid 2000.
INVITED LECTURES AND PROJECTS
Roundtable with Filipa Lowndes Vicente: “A Diáspora Africana e a Representação: Questões Sociais através da Fotografia”, Postdoctoral Program in Integral Human Development
Cados, Católica Doctoral School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa 2024.
Research Seminar Tropes of Polarity: Diasporic Conversations, an annually recurring event as part of the research program at HANGAR - Centro de Investigação Artística, Lisbon, compounding Dzifa Peters’ artistic practice and scholarly research in exchange with invited artists and scholars. First Edition: 2023.
Hangar On Art | “Hybridity Has Come A Long Way”
A conversation between Dzifa Peters and Ângela Ferreira about her artistic practice, discussing projects such as Maison Tropicale (2007), Dalaba: Sol d’Exil (2019), and her solo exhibition A Spontaneous Tour of Some Monuments of African Architecture (2021) at HANGAR - Centro de Investigação Artística, curated by Bruno Leitão 2022.
“Cultural Identities and their Representations”, Paper for International Symposium Decolonial Iconoclasm: City, Memory, Participation, Universidade Lisboa 2022.
Lecture “Spectral Identities and Photographic Tropes” for Symposium Undisciplining Photography, The Hague/ Rotterdam, organized by KABK - Royal Academy of Art, Nederlands Fotomuseum and Research Center for Material Culture 2021.
Lecture Performance How did I get into the picture? at HANGAR, Lisbon 2017.
CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS
“Places of Sanctuary in the Artistic Work of Liz Johnson Artur”, Paper for Afroeuropeans Conference 2022: Intersectional Challenges in Afroeuropean Communities, Brussel 2022.
Paper “Camouflage as a Principle of Coexistence and Agency”, Paper for Panel: Migration, Belonging, and Afro-Europeanness: Current Articulations and Future Perspectives (Part 2), NeMLA's 53rd Annual Convention, Baltimore US 2022 .
“Masquerades: Political Dimensions of Camouflage in AfroDiasporic Identities”. Paper Summer School Masquerades, The Lisbon Consortium, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon 2022.
Paper “Excavating the Archive: The Artistic Work of Omar Victor Diop”, Paper for MSA - Memory Studies Association Africa Regional Chapter: Annual Conference, South Africa/ Online 2021.
Paper “Independence, Resistance and the Postcolonial Invention of Self”, Paper for GEARS - The Global Empire and Resistance Scholarship Conference, Virginia US/ Online 2021.
Paper “Convivial Frictions: Ethics of Renegotiating Transcultural Relations in Contemporary Artistic Practices”, Paper for Summer School Conviviality The Lisbon Consortium/ 4Cs: From Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture 2021.
Workshop Photographic Reflections at CECC - Research Centre for Communication and Culture Lisbon, Organized by Dzifa Peters and Alfredo Brant 2021.
Paper “Notes on Mind and Body in Cultural Code Switching”, Paper for Summer School Neurohumanities The Lisbon Consortium 2019.
TEACHING
Teaching on intersectionality and racism for postgraduate Program “Pós-Graduação em Interculturalidade e Diversidade”, Universidade Católica Portuguesa (forthcoming 2025).
Co-Teaching with Prof. Claudia Hattendorff (Art History, JLU Giessen); Seminar: “(De)Colonizing Portraiture. Eine postkoloniale Geschichte des Porträts”, JLU Giessen WS 2022/23 2023.
Workshop “Introduction to Postcolonial Societies”, IPP Workshop Series, GCSC/ JLU Giessen WS 2022/23 2022.
EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
Perspicere: The Invention of Self – Postgraduate Diploma Exhibition Academy of Media Arts Cologne 2017.
Being a guest at Case – Projektraum für Fotografie 2017.
POR-BLING-INTER-FIST- FORM: Being a guest, CONTAINER, Düsseldorf 2016.
Vordemberge-Gildewart-Stipendium, KIT Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf 2014.
You and We, Diploma Exhibition (Solo) Kunstakademie Düsseldorf 2014. 2014
Panel: Knowlegde, Gallery M29 Cologne (with Rita McBride Class, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf) 2014 You and We, Diploma Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
Groupeffect NRW Bank Düsseldorf 2013.
PUBLICATIONS
Chapter “Ângela Ferreira’s Sonic Ways of Thinking: How to Create a Nexus”, as part of the Series: Artistic Research Collection, edited by Nuno Crespo, Escola das Artes, CITAR, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto (forthcoming).
Chapter “Camouflage and Hybridity in Postmigratory Black Cultures”, In: Contemporary Cultural Tools for Identities in the Making, edited by Fedrico Rudari and Luísa Santos as part of the second volume of (IM)MATERIAL CULTURE(S) AND POLITICS, Routledge (forthcoming).
Chapter “Do Edifício ao Monumento: Redistribuições Sensíveis na Esfera Pública” as 3rd part of the project: ASSEMBLEIA ORDINÁRIA (in Portuguese language) (forthcoming).
Essay “Places of Sanctuary in the Artistic Work of Liz Johnson Artur”, publication by The February Journal, Issue 01: Seeking Sanctuary 2023. Available online: https://thefebruaryjournal.org/en/article/96.
Book review “The Polyphonic Voices of Postmigration” KULT_online, Giessen 2022. Available online: https://journals.ub.uni-giessen.de/kult-online/article/view/1328.
Book chapter “Reach One Hundred”, Dzifa Peters, Linda Koncz. In: Luísa Santos (ed.) Portions of Share. 4 Artists and 3 Artists’ Books, Conceived under the project 4Cs: From Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture 2019.
‘Stipendium Vordemberge Gildewart 2014’, KIT Kunst im Tunnel und Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (Catalog) 2014.