Staff Reporter
THE National Art Gallery of Namibia (NAGN) officially opened its doors to the “Indifference” exhibition, which is an adaptation from the satellite display of “Good Neighbours,” a collaboration between the National Art Gallery of Namibia (NAGN) and the NIROX Foundation in South Africa.
Bringing together the work of five artists: Saima Iita, Ismael Shivute, Fillipus Sheehama, Kambezunda Ngavee, and Nicola Brandt, who practice in a range of media, from film, marble, soapstone, and steel to quartz, Makalani Nuts, and wire. This exhibition not only focuses on the artwork dedicated to this project but is further enriched through the Gallery’s collections of the artist’s work.
Co-curated by Ndeenda Shivute-Nakapunda and Sven Christian, this exhibition’s title is drawn from Nicola Brandt’s film of the same name. Originally shown as a multichannel triptych, her fourteen-minute film focuses on the lives of two women, one Herero and one German, who live in Swakopmund.
As described by the artist, the first ‘makes her living from tourists taking photos of her in traditional dress. On her way to work, she walks past Ovaherero, Nama, and San mass graves,’ while the second, a ninety-year-old German-Namibian woman, ‘tries to maintain her illusions about the Second World War and the events leading up to it, recalling a romantic encounter in the cemetery near her home, adjacent to the unmarked graves.’
In both, it is the proximity of their everyday lives to sites of genocide that is unnerving.
Much like the other works on show, Brandt’s film prompts a series of questions about the nature of indifference, in particular, its relation to time and space. How is nostalgia possible in a place marked by such violence? What is it about the passage of time that enables historical amnesia? How do two people who live in relative proximity end up with such varied life experiences? And how can we grapple with the kinds of indifference borne of colonialism and apartheid’s dehumanising segregationist policies?
Moving on a level of resilience is mirrored in the works of Saima Iita and Kambezunda Ngavee. Where Shivute’s works appear eternally patient, however, the figurative works of Iita and Ngavee bring forth a particular sense of urgency. Produced from metal, fire, and engine oil, Iita’s muscular figure lunges forward, her severed shackles transformed into whip-like forms. In its dynamism, Iita’s figure is anything but indifferent.
Similarly, while Ngavee’s two anthropomorphic marble works seem relatively subdued – the wings in “High Hope” (2022) pinned to the figure’s sides, the figure in “Sitting Bird” (2022) biding its time; their blend of vulture and human is suggestive. Providing a backdrop to his work, Ngavee observed how, ‘In Namibia, the world only moves fast for a small minority – those who have the ocean view. But at large, people in Namibia are suffering. We’re put in a position that we have no control over, economically. Now we are fighting to get back to a land that we no longer have ownership of. Left out in the desert, you will die of thirst. People push you toward the edge. But mentally, you have to persevere.’
Such concerns are also apparent in the large-scale hanging works of Fillipus Sheehama, most notably the artist’s choice of titles: “Collapsing Identity” (2020), “Rural Transformation” (2021), and “Elephant in the Room” (2020). Comprised of makalani nut piths, wire, and animal bone, Sheehama’s materials speak to the economics of place, specific to northern Namibia, where makalani nuts are used to brew Ombike/Owalende, in the manufacture of sugar, and carved to sell to tourists. In playing with the various textures and tones of these piths, Sheehama creates a series of tapestries that both define and blur the boundaries between individual and collective experience. Read within the context of this exhibition, his work asks to whom we are accountable, and to what end?
‘Indifference’ Namibia will be on show at the NAGN until Saturday, 19 August 2023. The Gallery is open on Mondays (14h00 – 17h00), Tuesdays to Fridays (08h00 – 17h00), and Saturdays (09h00 – 14h00).
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