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How come some occurrences are edited out of history and some over-emphasized? Who is giving whom the right to speak and when? How is history visible and audible in the present? What is an anti-monument? What are ways in which an archive relates to the present? Towards Memory is a video and research project in collaboration with Namibian women who as children were sent to the former GDR during the Namibian struggle for independence and against apartheid, which started in 1979. After the fall of the Berlin Wall they were abruptly sent back to Namibia. The video installation is based on archival research, video interviews, as well as contemporary commemorations of 25 years of independence and the genocide of the Herero and Nama. The project scrutinizes the entanglement of German and Namibian politics dealing with the consequences and (in-)visibilities of colonialism, genocide, displacement, and apartheid.
Katrin Winkler, born in 1983 in Starnberg, Germany, works in the fields of expanded cinema, critical research, video, and photography. A recurring theme in her practice is the invisibility and visibility of history and its entanglement with the contemporary moment. She was an assistant at the Katutura Community Art Center, Windhoek, Namibia. She holds a BFA in Photography from the Hochschule München, an MFA in Photography and Media with Allan Sekula from the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, and was a master student of Clemens von Wedemeyer at the Academy of Fine Arts, Leipzig. Her work has been shown in exhibitions around the world.
Production: Katrin Winkler, Berlin
Camera: Katrin Winkler
Cast: Monica Nambelela, Lucia Engombe, Fatima Pedru, Esther Utjiua Muinjange
Format: 2-channel video installation, color
Running time: 32 min
Language: German, English
Photo: © Katrin Winkler
