Gladys Kalichini is a Zambian academic and visual artist working at the intersection of Art History and artistic practice. Her work is defined by a deeply interdisciplinary approach that weaves together critical theory, historical research, and experimental visual methods to examine how memory, gender, and resistance are negotiated and represented in cultural and political contexts, particularly in southern Africa in the post-independence era. She earned both her Master of Fine Art and PhD in Art History and Visual Culture from Rhodes University in South Africa, where she developed a body of research focused on the marginalisation of women in national memory and postcolonial historical discourse. Her academic and artistic work interrogates how archives, commemorative practices, and visual culture contribute to shaping collective memory and national identity.

Dr. Kalichini has held several academic fellowships, including the Stuart Black Fellowship at the University of Melbourne in Australia and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften (Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities) Goethe University Frankfurt, under the research theme Democratic Vistas: Reflections on the Atlantic World. In both roles, she contributed to international research conversations on gender, postcoloniality, and the visual politics of memory. Her postdoctoral work explores the entanglements of democratic resistance, gendered memory, and postcolonial identity formation, and contributes to broader debates on memory and reparations. As a practicing artist, she has exhibited her work across Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas, including major platforms such as the Zeitz MOCAA, the Stellenbosch Triennial, and the Bamako Photography Biennale.