Sandra Poulson (b. 1995, Lisbon) is an Angolan artist who lives and works between London and Luanda. Her work discusses the political, cultural, and socio-economic landscape of Angola to analyse the relationship between history, oral tradition, and global political structures towards the understanding of ‘near-south’ appropriate (and often in place) approaches.

Through auto-ethnographic and archaeological approaches, her practice continually operates as a space for questioning and unravelling ‘networks of existence’ that understand the dynamics of the ‘uninhabitable as a methodology’. She draws upon inherited societal memories of colonial Angola and its civil war to dismantle contemporary narratives through semiotic studies.

Poulson’s practice utilises family and societal passed down knowledge to dismantle contemporary fluxes of reality in Angola through semiotic studies of ordinary (cultural) objects such as household items as actors in political and cultural ongoing transformations which inherently draws the questions posed by the work to the task of decoloniality.

Poulson graduated from BA Fashion Print at Central Saint Martins (2020). Solo presentations and commissions include the upcoming ‘Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere’, 60th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale, Venice (2024); ‘Dancing Before the Moon’, British Pavilion, Venice Biennale of Architecture, Venice (2023); ‘Dust as an Accidental Gift’, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Sharjah (2023); ‘Economy of the Dust’, V.O Curations, London (2022); ‘If the Equator Shifts 90º, Does It Go from a Border to a Highway, or maybe to a Footpath?’, Acne Studios, Stockholm (2022); ‘Hope as a Praxis’, JAHMEK Art at ARCO Madrid, Madrid (2021).

Her work has featured in group exhibitions at Hannah Barry Gallery, London (2023); Bold Tendencies, London (2022); ’Before Anyone Else’, Boy.Brother.Friend exhibition in collaboration with Burberry, London (2021); Lagos Biennial (2019), Abuja Art Week (2020), Art Joburg (2020), Firstsite, Colchester (2021), SALTS X Boda Boda Lounge, Basel (2021); Lethaby Gallery (2021, 2018), Nunnery Gallery (2019), Copeland Gallery (2018).

Poulson has had screenings at the Guggenheim, New York (2021), Salts Basel (2021) and Boda Boda Lounge (2020). She was awarded the Mullen Loewe Nova Award (2020), Your Nova Award (2020), the Central Saint Martins Dean's Award (2020), and was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2021) and the BNC Digital Fellowship (2021).

Poulson’s work has been featured in Frieze Magazine, New Currency Magazine, Vogue US, Vogue Itália, Vogue Brasil, I-D, The Face, FAD Magazine, Creative Brief, Where’s the frame?, 10 Magazine, Creative Review, Artnet News, Jornal de Angola, AnOther Magazine; Numéro Netherlands among others. 

Sandra Poulson is represented by Jahmek Contemporary.