Jeannette Ehlers (b. 1973) is a Danish-Trinidadian artist based in Copenhagen, whose interdisciplinary practice critically engages with memory, race, colonialism and the African diaspora. Since graduating from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2006, Ehlers has worked experimentally across photography, video, installation, sculpture and performance. Her art serves as a tool for decolonial disruption and historical reckoning, often incorporating self-representation and digital manipulation to reveal suppressed narratives and confront the legacies of Denmark’s colonial past in the Caribbean, and its role in the transatlantic slave trade.
Ehlers merges personal and collective histories, combining the familial, poetic and bodily with the political, rebellious and historical. Her works are what she calls ‘resistance pieces’, embodying a strong drive toward empowerment and healing through honouring legacies of both tradition and defiance. As writer Lesley-Ann Brown notes, Ehlers ‘reminds everyone who participates in or looks at her work that history is not past’.
One of her most renowned projects is the monumental public sculpture I Am Queen Mary (2018), co-created with artist La Vaughn Belle. It is the first public statue of a Black woman in Denmark and commemorates Mary Thomas, a leader of the 1878 labour revolt on St Croix. The work stands as a bold intervention in public space and historical narrative, exemplifying Ehlers’ commitment to visibility and justice.
Ehlers has participated in numerous international exhibitions and residencies, including at the 18th Street Arts Center (United States), Triangle Arts (United States) and PROGR (Switzerland), expanding her transnational lens on colonial and diasporic themes. Her recent exhibitions include Crossing Waters: Ripples of Tomorrow at Le Bicolore (2024), Diasporic Frequencies at Rønnebæksholm (2023), Archives in the Tongue: A Litany of Freedoms at Kunsthal Charlottenborg (2022) and Take Root at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2021).
Her work is held in major public and private collections such as the National Museum of Photography (Denmark), the Danish Arts Foundation, the Gothenburg Museum of Art (Sweden), and the Saastamoinen Foundation (Finland). She was also one of the artists shortlisted to produce a national monument to the Windrush Generation in London (2021) and a decolonial monument in Braunschweig, Germany (2023).
Through her deeply researched and emotionally resonant practice, Ehlers challenges dominant historical narratives, brings marginalised voices to the fore and contributes significantly to contemporary global discourses on identity, colonialism and resistance.
