Restituting Evidence & Swakopmund
Forensic Architecture - German Colonial Genocide in Namibia
Between 1904 and 1908, Germany committed genocide against the Herero, Mbanderu and Nama peoples in its colony of ‘South West Africa’ (now Namibia). Over three days of our focus Investigative Arts, we will show individual film screenings from the series German Colonial Genocide in Namibia by the research collectives Forensic Architecture/Forensis, who collaborated with genocide activists from descendant communities to combine archival photos and oral testimonies in 3D models of the sites where these atrocities were committed. Their findings are the beginning of a collection of digital evidence that can be used to support claims for land restitution and reparations.
Past dates
9/25/25
8:15 PM
RESTITUTING EVIDENCE: OKAHANDJA & OTJOZONDJUPA (WATERBERG)
Okahandja was the historic capital of Hereroland, a place where the Herero people regularly pay homage to their fallen leaders, heroes, and heroines, and the ancestral homestead of the Maharero clan. Some of the first colonial photographs of what was then called ‘South West Africa’ were captured here in 1876. While such archival images are artefacts of a colonial gaze, FA/Forensis uses them in support of Indigenous land claims to identify the locations of Ovaherero settlements that once straddled the omuramba (seasonal riverbed) of the Okahandja River and to weave a chronology of the process of German colonisation.
Now known under its colonial name of ‘Waterberg’, Otjozondjupa is the site of what was to be a decisive historical turning point. Otjozondjupa, where the Indigenous uprising known to Herero people as the War of Anti-Colonial Resistance took place, is also where the German colonial strategy turned decisively toward genocide. Around thirty thousand Ovaherero people sought refuge there, joining existing settlements of the Kambazembi clan under the leadership of Samuel Maharero. German colonial troops formed a bulwark to prevent the Herero from fleeing west, forcing them instead into a region known to colonists as the ‘waterless’ Omaheke Sandveld (‘sand field’ in Afrikaans).
Swakopmund
This investigation is the latest instalment of FA/Forensis’ project on the genocide perpetrated against the Nama and Ovaherero people by Imperial Germany, in what is today Namibia. Conducted in partnership with Ovaherero and Nama activists and traditional leadership, this investigation focuses on the harbour town of Swakopmund.
From 1904 until 1908, Swakopmund housed a concentration camp run by the German colonial army. Together with descendants of survivors and activists, we reconstructed the town as it existed during the genocide, revealing the long-forgotten location of the camp, alongside many sites of forced labour throughout the town’s fabric. With forensic archaeologists, we investigated the unmarked graves of the camp’s victims at the edges of the town, revealing how they have been disturbed and destroyed by urban development.
Forensic Architecture(FA) and Forensis use techniques in spatial analysis and digital modelling to investigate state and corporate violence, environmental destruction, and colonial legacies. In collaboration with indigenous Ovaherero and Nama groups, the two agencies have undertaken a multi-year investigation into the genocide perpetrated by German colonial forces in Namibia during the first years of the 20th century. Connecting this violent history to contemporary instances of state violence in Germany and Palestine, their ongoing research is presented across a series of films, an installation, and a panel discussion.
