Shark Island
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
9/26/25
7:00 PM
Since 2022, Forensis and Forensic Architecture (FA) have worked with Nama and Ovaherero leadership groups in Namibia to examine sites related to the 1904-1908 genocide perpetrated by the German colonial army against the Ovaherero and Nama peoples. This investigation examines one of the most traumatic chapters in this history: the legacy of Shark Island, the site of the deadliest concentration camp established by the Germans in the colony known at the time as ‘German South West Africa’. Together with descendants of victims and survivors, FA/Forensis reconstructed the camp in unprecedented detail and identified burial sites dating back to the period of the genocide.
Descendants’ calls for the preservation of Shark Island and commemoration of the horrors that took place there have taken on new urgency. Significant proposals for commercial and infrastructural development on Shark Island and throughout the wider ancestral lands of the !Aman Nama threaten to destroy further physical traces of this history, continuing a process of erasure already compounded by decades of systemic neglect.
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.
