Guardian I, Namib Desert (2017). © Nicola Brandt
The Shape of Memory, Wlotzkasbaken, Namibia (2012). © Nicola Brandt
The Herero Wars of 1904–1908 are considered by many to be the first genocide of the 20th century. During the “Scramble of Africa,” imperialist powers in Germany descended upon present-day Namibia in southwest Africa in 1884. Two decades later, when the Herero people rose in revolt, General Lothar von Trotha issued an extermination order to kill every man and drive women and children into the desert.
.
At the end of 1904, the Germans divided up survivors, sending some to concentration camps and others to work slave labour for German businesses. Within four years, up to 110,000 Herero had been killed – yet it would be nearly a century before the government of Germany publicly acknowledged and apologized for the acts of genocide, as reported in The Guardian in 2004.
.
As a woman of German descent born in Namibia, photographer Nicola Brandt feels a profound connection to its legacy, creating The Earth Inside, a body of photographs and Indifference, a video, that examine the landscape where these European atrocities took place. “As an artist sensitive to the histories and memories contained in the landscapes and structures that relate to our past, it is difficult not to engage with our colonial inheritance and its effects,” she explains.
.
Read the Full Story at Huck Online
.
Next to the Graves, Swakopmund, Namibia (2012). © Nicola Brandt