History meets arts at National Art Gallery
'Artistic Research Communal Knowledge' project
The National Art Gallery and the National Museum of Namibia are getting Namibians to reconnect through the 'Artistic Research Communal Knowledge: Reconnecting with Returned Cultural Belongings (ARCK)' project, which will see a full house of exhibitions starting this week.
The ARCK project is part of the larger ‘Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures’ project, which was spearheaded by the National Museum of Namibia and saw the repatriation of 23 culturally and historically significant belongings that were returned to Namibia from the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin in May 2022.
With the involvement of the National Art Gallery, ARCK plans to unlock these items and provide the public with information regarding their origin and what they were used for in the past, based on the research outcome of seven community researchers contracted to find out the history behind these objects. The exhibition will feature the work of five artists, who will then tell the story based on the research findings.
Taking ownership
According to Ndeenda Shivute-Nakapunda, the chief curator of the National Art Gallery of Namibia (NAGN), this was an experimental project that happened organically between the partners involved.
The project is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation and co-funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Bayron van Wyk, the art gallery’s exhibitions curator, said the project is significant in showcasing Namibia’s history and that it is vital to “take ownership of our cultural heritage” considering the “difficult past” that Namibians have had, as topics covered stretch to periods before German colonialism.
According to van Wyk, colonialism sent the message that some local cultural practices were not accepted. He said “the gallery is now saying – this has been part of us, it's not something we can change, we have to embrace it."
Creating public access
The exhibition is expected to be filled with engagement, with Shivute-Nakapunda highlighting an important educational aspect.
“We are re-discovering what these objects are and we don’t want to keep that information locked up in an archive. We really want to create access,” she said.
The returned cultural items range from leather pants, ornaments, adornments, jewellery, garments, tortoise shells and calabash containers. “Something that stands out – it’s a variety of materials – we have leather work, but we’ve also got wood work and bead work, that you can see how intricately people worked back then,” Shivute-Nakapunda said.
The cultural belongings that were repatriated now belong to the national museum.
"The artwork made by the artists will not be for sale on the evening, but we are still looking into possibilities of finding other goods that people could possibly buy that may look similar,” she said.
The exhibition will be running for six weeks at the National Art Gallery in Windhoek and will be open to the public at no cost. The national gallery is open from 14h00–17h00 on Mondays, from 08h00–17h00 from Tuesday to Friday, and on Saturdays from 09h00–14h00.
The ARCK project is part of the larger ‘Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures’ project, which was spearheaded by the National Museum of Namibia and saw the repatriation of 23 culturally and historically significant belongings that were returned to Namibia from the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin in May 2022.
With the involvement of the National Art Gallery, ARCK plans to unlock these items and provide the public with information regarding their origin and what they were used for in the past, based on the research outcome of seven community researchers contracted to find out the history behind these objects. The exhibition will feature the work of five artists, who will then tell the story based on the research findings.
Taking ownership
According to Ndeenda Shivute-Nakapunda, the chief curator of the National Art Gallery of Namibia (NAGN), this was an experimental project that happened organically between the partners involved.
The project is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation and co-funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Bayron van Wyk, the art gallery’s exhibitions curator, said the project is significant in showcasing Namibia’s history and that it is vital to “take ownership of our cultural heritage” considering the “difficult past” that Namibians have had, as topics covered stretch to periods before German colonialism.
According to van Wyk, colonialism sent the message that some local cultural practices were not accepted. He said “the gallery is now saying – this has been part of us, it's not something we can change, we have to embrace it."
Creating public access
The exhibition is expected to be filled with engagement, with Shivute-Nakapunda highlighting an important educational aspect.
“We are re-discovering what these objects are and we don’t want to keep that information locked up in an archive. We really want to create access,” she said.
The returned cultural items range from leather pants, ornaments, adornments, jewellery, garments, tortoise shells and calabash containers. “Something that stands out – it’s a variety of materials – we have leather work, but we’ve also got wood work and bead work, that you can see how intricately people worked back then,” Shivute-Nakapunda said.
The cultural belongings that were repatriated now belong to the national museum.
"The artwork made by the artists will not be for sale on the evening, but we are still looking into possibilities of finding other goods that people could possibly buy that may look similar,” she said.
The exhibition will be running for six weeks at the National Art Gallery in Windhoek and will be open to the public at no cost. The national gallery is open from 14h00–17h00 on Mondays, from 08h00–17h00 from Tuesday to Friday, and on Saturdays from 09h00–14h00.
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