The Hornkranz Massacre & The Environmental Continuum of Genocide in Namibia
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
9/27/25
8:30 PM
The Hornkranz Massacre
At the initiative of the Nama Traditional Leaders Association (NTLA), FA and Forensis worked with descendants of survivors to produce visual evidence and document the oral history transmitted through generations about the massacre of the Witbooi Nama in Hornkranz perpetrated in 1893.
Alongside the spatial reconstruction of the settlement and the unfolding of the massacre, the project interrogates the environmental changes that have ensued since the expulsion of the Nama from these lands.
The project seeks to support the community’s efforts to establish the 1893 massacre of Hornkranz as the first act of genocide against the Nama. It also supports the descendants’ ongoing calls for free and open access to their sites of remembrance.
The Environmental Continuum of Genocide in Namibia
Following the genocidal campaigns perpetrated against the Nama and Ovaherero, European-style sedentary commercial farms were imposed, and native wildlife nearly eradicated, while the surviving Indigenous populations were confined to ‘native reserves’ a fragment of the size of their ancestral homelands.
Drawing on oral testimony, archival records and fieldwork, FA/Forensis developed novel methods for the reconstruction of historical landscapes to make visible the long-term environmental degradation experienced in Namibia since German colonisation. Environmental degradation is an overlooked colonial legacy which perpetuates genocidal violence today through landlessness, economic deprivation, and intergenerational poverty.
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.
Mark Mushiba currently works as a researcher at Forensis. He holds a Masters in Information Technology from the Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST) and Aalto University in Finland. He also holds a PhD in Human Computer Interaction from the University of Trento, Italy. His PhD thesis centered on Designing Low-threshold Prosocial games for Intergenerational Interaction. Prior to working at Forensis, he worked as freelance creative technologist in Berlin and as technical fellow with the Academy of Theatre and Digitality in Dortmund.
