Koloniale Spurensuche: Artist Talk mit Kavena Hambira

For the special exhibition "Land gewinnen", a video installation has been created in cooperation with the Namibian artist Kavena Hambira, which deals with the handling of colonial assets. As part of an artist talk, the renowned artist and filmmaker will join the museum live on April 19 from 3 pm. Namibian-born historian Joachim Zeller will be available to Kavena Hambira as a discussion partner. Joachim Zeller's research interests include (post)colonial remembrance culture and Namibian colonial history.

The discussion will focus on the following questions: How does the DSM deal with colonial exhibits? How does Kavena Hambira place them in a new context? And how does the collection team examine the objects with regard to their origin?

The DSM addresses the topic of colonial history from three perspectives: DSM curators show how objects and archival materials are integrated into the special exhibition. Collections staff member Romy Köhler will present the handling of archival materials and objects from colonial contexts from the perspective of collection history and provenance research. The video work by Kavena Hambira will then be shown. Finally, participants will learn from the artist himself how he worked with the archive documents.

Since January of this year, the newly founded "Documentation and Provenance" department has been systematically examining the holdings with regard to context-sensitive provenance and collection histories. Specifically, it shows how naval collections from German colonial contexts are subjected to a critical and, in view of colonial revisionist appropriations, counterfactual examination.

The focus is on narratives associated with collection objects such as "travel souvenirs", private photo albums with handwritten comments and award certificates for colonial commemorative coins. These are reconstructed in their specific colonial contexts and colonial revisionist narratives are deconstructed.

Kavena Hambira is a Namibian filmmaker, visual artist and lecturer based in Oakland, California. He explores memory, land and history through documentary storytelling. The work of the Berkeley graduate and Fulbright Scholar has been published in the New York Times and shown at Harvard University and elsewhere. The special exhibition "Land gewinnen - Die Deutsche Atlantische Expedition von 1925 bis 1927" can be seen until May 3, 2026. In addition to the METEOR expedition 100 years ago and its research, the exhibition critically examines the political and colonial entanglements of the METEOR expedition and also incorporates a Namibian perspective.

The video installation was created with the kind support of the DSM Sponsors' Association. The event will be offered bilingually (German/English) and in a hybrid format.

To register for online participation, please contact Dr. Isabella Hodgson at i.hodgson@dsm.museum. The link will be assigned after registration.