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We are excited to put out an invitation to everyone for our upcoming seminar on Thursday 29th February 2024, which Dr Julia Binter (University of Bonn) will be presenting. The talk is titled Carrying the Burden, Caring for the Past Land, Body and Sensuous Knowledge in Contemporary Namibian Art and you will find details below.
This event can be attended in person or online. For those of you in Norwich, you are most welcome to join us for drinks and dinner at The Unthank Arms afterwards.
Venue: Elizabeth Fry Building 1.01.
Time: 5:00 - 6:30pm GMT.
Link to register to follow online: Meeting Registration - Zoom
Here is also a link to Dr Binter's page: https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/research-and-teaching/research-profile/transdisciplinary-research-areas/tra-5/argelander-professur?set_language=en
Abstract
Namibia’s multi-layered histories of colonial exploitation, socio-cultural rupture and genocide have been a recurring theme tackled by contemporary artists in Namibia. In this talk, I will discuss the recent work of Tuli Mekondjo, Cynthia Schimming, Betty Tuavisiua Katuuo, Nicola Brandt and Prince Kamaazengi Marenga who, in their idiosyncratic ways of performance and mixed media installations, reflect on the intertwining of body and land in the Namibian past and present. They all use colonial archives - historical artefacts, photographs, sound recordings and written documents - and make them critically their own by interweaving and overlaying them with previously marginalised experiences and bodies of knowledge, such as those of women and children. Inspired by Minna Salami’s (2020) concept of ‘sensuous knowledge’, which focuses on epistemologies beyond the Eurocentric canon and attunes to the affects and creativity inherent in knowledge production and transfer, I will trace the ways in which the artists embody, contest and seek to overcome transgenerational trauma of colonial violence and genocide, as well as missionary pasts. In Tuli Mekondjo’s words, they are ‘carrying the burden, caring for the past’.