Curator & Artist Talk: Rendition

Rendition is a cinematic essay about the “madgermans”, a group of Mozambicans working in East Germany who were abruptly sent home after the reunification of Germany and who are still waiting for the balance of their contracts to be paid.

The artist questions the documentation of “history in the mak-ing” by assembling a mosaic of materials-from personal memories and interviews to ongoing protest documentation-to tell their story.

Join Curator, Nima Esmailpour and artist, Euridice Zaituna Kala for a discussion about the concept behind the exhibition, the artist’s relationship to the “madgermans”, and using arts to advocate for and popularize the stories of migrant workers. The talk will be followed by a Q&A with audience members.

The discussion will be projected live from CSV as the artist and the curator will be joining virtually— artist Euridice Zaituna Kala from France, and curator Nima Esmailpour, from Quebec where he is currently Author in Residence at Est-Nord-Est in Canada.

Refreshments will be served.

Rendition forms part of Every Worker Should Have Equal Labour Rights, curated by Nima Esmailpour and presented in collaboration with Charles Street Video at the Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts.

Euridice Zaituna Kala

Born in 1987 in Maputo, Mozambique, Euridice Zaituna Kala lives and works in Maisons-Alfort. Her work focuses on cultural and historical metamorphoses, their manipulations and their ad- aptations. The artist reproduces the visual vocabulary of historical archives in order to reveal not only their subjectivity, but also those they have invisibilized. She questions the appropriation of black bodies through their representation in archives; but rather than seizing their history, she attempts to reaffirm their existence. Her approach is based on research, with a multi-form expression. Her practice is protean: performances, installations, photographs, texts, videos, sculptures/landscapes, sound pieces. A graduate in experimental photography from the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg (South Africa) in 2012 and from the Asiko School in Maputo (Mozambique) in 2015, currently enrolled in a Masters of Arts programme at the École national supérieure d’arts Paris-Cergy (2026). Euridice Zaituna Kala is the first laureate of the Prix Carta Bianca (2025-2026), a finalist for Paulo Cunha e Silva prize (2023). She was also the recipient of the Villa Vassilieff/ADAGP scholarship (2019/2020) and did a residency at the Villa Albertine in New York (2022/2023) and at the Villa Medici in Roma (2023). Zaituna Kala has presented a solo exhibitions such as Daylighting: mais c’est l’eau qui parle, La Criée Rennes (2025), La Loge, Brussels (2026), Kunsthalle, Münster, (2026), En quelques gestes: as if two suns were setting, Galerie Anne Barrault, Paris (2025), Sea(E)scape: Dna (Don’t (N)ever Ask), Salon H, Paris , (2022), and Je suis l’archive, I the archive at Villa Vassilieff in Paris (2020). She also participates in many group shows, such Le Syndrome de Bonnard, Frac Ile-de-France, Paris & Romainville, (2026) The Great Camouflage, Rockbund Art Mu- seum, Shanghaï, China (2025-2026) Primavera, Primavera, Frac MÉCA, Bordeaux (2024), Echos der Bruderländer at the HKW in Berlin and Passengers in Transit in the frame of the Ven- ice Biennale, Prémio Paulo Cunha e Silva, at Porto Municipal gallery (2023), Indigo Waves and Other Stories at Berlin Savvy Contemporary gallery (2023), Fata Morgana at the Jeu de Paume in Paris (2022), This is Not Africa – Unlearn What You Have Learned at the ARoS Museum in Aarhus Denmark (2021), Le pouvoir du dedans at the Galerie, Centre d’Art Contemporain in Noisy-le-Sec (2018). Future Performances inlcude: Trou Noir, et Compositions at La Loge, Brussels (2026), She has presented numerous performances including Sea(E)scapes: Listening Session at the Jeu de Paume (2022), Toetra (based on the text Je suis l’archive ) at the Centre Pompidou (2021), Stranger, Danger : Wait, it’s just a prayer Room at the Centre Pompidou (2019), and Mackandal Turns into a Butterfly: a love portion at the Galerie, Centre d’Art Contemporain in Noisy-Le-Sec (2018). She is an artist-teacher at the École des Beaux Arts of Nantes. She is also the founder and co-organizer of e.a.s.t. (Ephemeral Archival Station), a laboratory and a platform for artistic projects and research, founded in 2017.

Nima Esmailpour is an Iranian-Canadian curator and researcher focused on contemporary art practices by diasporic artists. Recent roles include a curatorial research residency with Résidences Transatlantiques (France) and a year-long Curatorial Fellowship at the Toronto Biennial of Art 2024, themed Precarious Joys. Esmailpour has contributed to artist-run and community-based initiatives such as Taklif and Diaspora in Diaspora, and has held board roles at articule (Montréal), shaping equity-focused programming and policy. His practice is grounded in accessibility, critical engagement, and collective knowledge-making.

Charles Street Video (CSV) is a non-profit production organization dedicated to supporting media artists. CSV fosters the creation of media art, encourages experimentation, and develops an artistic community in Toronto. CSV is the city’s leading media arts production centre where emerging and established artists gather to achieve their artistic visions. CSV provides affordable access to equipment and post-production editing facilities for creating videos, films, installations and other media art forms. They also commissions artists to create new works, and sponsors a variety of youth-oriented production programs and post-secondary scholarships. CSV actively participates in local exhibitions of media art through partnerships with arts organizations and grassroots festivals.