Zambian-born poet, playwright and performance artist Chanje Kunda has built an international artistic career rooted deeply in her Southern African heritage, using her work to bridge continents while never losing sight of where her creative voice began.
Born in Zambia and now based between the UK and Europe, Kunda carries her Zambian identity not as background detail, but as the emotional and philosophical foundation of her multidisciplinary practice.
Her work is defined by a powerful blending of autobiography and politics, where personal experience becomes a lens through which to explore broader questions of identity, gender, science, and society.
Through poetry, theatre and movement, she interrogates the realities of 21st century life while seeking to transform how audiences think about the body, language and belonging.
Although her career has taken her to some of the world’s most prestigious stages, including performances at The Royal Albert Hall, the Southbank Centre and the Royal Exchange in the UK, as well as international appearances in Jamaica, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the Netherlands, Romania and Croatia, Kunda’s artistic sensibility remains anchored in her Zambian roots.
Her storytelling often reflects a consciousness shaped by African oral traditions, where rhythm, voice and embodied performance carry as much meaning as written text.
Her creative commissions include major institutions such as the Manchester International Festival and the Imperial War Museum, yet even within these global spaces, Kunda’s work retains a distinctly personal and culturally grounded perspective.
Her published writing appears in literary journals and anthologies, alongside her solo collection released by Crocus Books in 2013, further establishing her as a transnational literary voice with African origins at its core.
Kunda’s solo theatre productions, including Blue Black Sister (2009), Amsterdam (2014), Superposition (2017) and Plant Fetish (2019), reflect her evolving exploration of identity, physics, femininity and emotional truth.
In Superposition, she famously blends poetry with movement, drawing unexpected parallels between particle physics and human intimacy.
The work reflects her belief that art should resist categorisation, just as she herself refuses to be defined by a single cultural or artistic label.
Her creative philosophy is grounded in what she describes as the “positive power of words” and the visual presence of the Black female body as a living canvas.
This approach has taken her into diverse spaces, from universities and hospitals to prisons and community arts centres, where she has delivered workshops that use poetry as a tool for healing, reflection and empowerment.
Notably, at the Whitworth Art Gallery, she led creative writing sessions with bereaved parents, producing poetry that now forms part of a public exhibition honouring stillbirth and neonatal loss.
Colleagues and critics have praised her originality and stage presence. Literary Associate Jane Fallowfield of Talawa Theatre has described her work as “vivid and startling,” while Turner Prize-winning artist Jesse Darling has called her practice “amazing” and “multi-layered.”
Despite her international recognition, Kunda’s journey has not been without struggle. Early in her career, she was rejected for arts funding, forcing her to self-finance her productions through unconventional means, including personal savings, small business ventures and community support.
These experiences, however, strengthened her resolve and deepened her commitment to artistic independence.
Today, Chanje Kunda stands as a Zambian cultural ambassador in practice if not in title, using performance to challenge stereotypes, expand intellectual boundaries and celebrate the complexity of African womanhood in a global context.
Her work continues to affirm that identity is not fixed geography, but a living, evolving superposition of history, body, and imagination.
