b. 1992, Djibouti City, Djibouti; lives and works in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Gouled Ahmed is an Addis Ababa-based Somali visual artist, stylist, costume designer and director. Their work explores the themes of memory and belonging through the lens of self-portrait photography, self-fashioning and textile art. Their ongoing self-portrait series Our Earth Will Remember Us Again Someday and One Day These Names Will Be Ours explore the gaps that exist within formal language in the understanding and contextualization of gender expressions that exist outside of the binary. Gouled’s work deals with the notion of futurity and is heavily aimed at envisioning new and equitable aesthetic futures for the Horn of Africa. Gouled is a recipient of the African Cultural Fund’s inaugural grant as well as the Prince Claus Fund’s inaugural Seed Award. In 2021 they collaborated with Bristol-based Somali poet, director and visual artist Asmaa Jama on Before We Disappear, an interactive moving image piece commissioned by BBC Arts as both a costume designer and model. Gouled also collaborated on the experimental film The Season of Burning Things with Jama commissioned by the Bristol Old Vic Theater as a co-director. The piece was screened last November at the Venice Architecture Biennale in collaboration with the Goethe Institut and Theater Neumarkt’s 100 Ways to Say We program. Most recently, Gouled also featured in the documentary The Ones Who Keep Walking a film commissioned by Johnnie Walker, to share the stories of twenty rising creatives and boundary-pushers from the African continent. They are also part of the upcoming group exhibition at the V&A Museum entitled Africa Fashion.
