13 November 2019
Multimedia installation They tried to bury us by Isabel Tueumuna Katjavivi as part of “Colonial Repercussions V: The Namibian Case”
29 November – 8 December 2019, Pariser Platz, Blackbox
Invitation to a press tour with the artist
Friday, 29 November 2019, 10 am
With Isabel Tueumuna Katjavivi, Johannes Odenthal
In English
Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin
Please register for the press event at:
Tel. 030 200 57-1514 or presse@adk.de
As part of the symposium “Colonial Repercussions V: The Namibian Case”, the Akademie der Künste is showing the multimedia installation They tried to bury us by Isabel Tueumuna Katjavivi from 29 November to 8 December in the Blackbox at Pariser Platz.
The German colonial rule in former “German South-West Africa” and the genocide committed against the Ovaherero and Nama peoples is ingrained as an unresolved trauma in the bodies of the people, the psyche of society, but also in the country's natural landscape. In her work, the Namibian artist Isabel Tueumuna Katjavivi focuses on ephemeral, locally-specific installations that memorialise the Ovaherero genocide. In They tried to bury us she has created a place of memory which is now being shown in Berlin for the first time: Individual faces made of hardened clay protrude from the red sand. In their fragility they represent the countless dead that were never laid to rest. Video projections show images including trees that were used as gallows at the time. The installation allows the audience to walk the fine line between past and present.
Isabel Tueumuna Katjavivi lives and works as a visual artist in Windhoek, Namibia. She is currently enrolled in a master's programme of Visual Arts at the University of Namibia; in 2017 she was the first winner of the Bank Windhoek Triennial Competition. Katjavivi has had three solo exhibitions and has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions. Her work can currently be seen in the collection of the Museum Würth in Künzelsau, in the Luciano Benetton Collection as well as in the collection of the National Art Gallery of Namibia.
Event Information
Colonial Repercussions V: The Namibian Case
Symposium: 29 November 2019 from 2 pm
With Ixmucané Aguilar, Alejandra Ancheita, Joshua Castellino, Ida Hoffmann, Isabel Tueumuna Katjavivi, Sima Luipert, Alexandra Kemmerer, Trixie Munyama, John Nakuta, Jessé de Souza
Multimedia installation: 29 November – 8 December 2019, 11 am – 7 pm
Isabel Tueumuna Katjavivi, They tried to bury us, 2018/2019
Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin
In English, free admission
>> Press photos available at presse@adk.de or 030 – 200 57-1514
Further information and programme at www.adk.de/colonial-repercussions