319pp., 4to., colour illus., hardback, Archive Books, Berlin, (2023)
ISBN: 9783949973123
An artistic photography documentary of the genocide perpetuated in German South West Africa (now Namibia) by visual artist Ixmucané Aguilar, curated by Tristan Pranyko, and exhibited for the first time at the National Art Gallery in Windhoek in 2022.
The work was produced over a three year period (2019-2022), during which the artist worked in close collaboration with Nama and OvaHerero people to document brutality, human loss and land dispossession endured by their relatives under Germany's colonial rule.
The book includes Aguilar’s photographic portraits of OvaHerero and Nama women, men, children and elders; contributions by human rights attorney Wolfgang Kaleck and curator Tristan Pranyko; poetry by Namibian artists Nesindano Namises, Fritz Isak Dirkse and Prince Kamaazegi; and narratives, testimonies, chants and mourning rituals shared by the people she interviewed.
Ixmucané Aguilar, who is of Afro-Caribbean and Guatemalan heritage, was born in political exile during the civil war in Guatemala. Raised across Latin America, she graduated from Weißensee Academy of Art in Berlin, where she currently lives and works.