Namibia

Catching up with Imke Rust

Article by Andrew Robson

^{Namibian artist Imke Rust was in Berlin, Germany, on a stipend as part of the Berliner Kunstler Program for three-and-a-half months in 2006, returning home mid-December. The stipend is part of the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and is awarded to young upcoming artists. It is not applied for; the artists are selected by jurors. Artists ordinarily receive a financial sum for a two month stay. Imke paid an additional one-and-a-half months herself.}
^{During her time in Germany, Imke had the opportunity to showcase her brand of African art on the International scene. I decided to catch up with this award-winning artist and find out what she got up to in Berlin, a city commonly recognised as the contemporary art capital of the world.}

^{Andrew Robson (AR): What value, if any, did this stipend have for you and Namibia?}
^{Imke Rust (IR): Quite a bit. The host country (Germany) learnt about Namibian art, Namibia, and my own art. The stipend gave me an opportunity to see things out of isolation, meaning I got to see the bigger picture of art in an International context, and that inspired me to do things. Also, I was paid to do art fulltime, which is a rare luxury for Namibian artists. As an artist it was a fantastic opportunity to grow. Now that I’m back home, I can try inform Namibians about my experience and the International art scene.}

^{AR: What did you do in Germany for three-and-a-half months?}
^{IR: I held three exhibitions in that time. The exhibitions generated invitations to speak at schools, universities, and even the Berlin Parliament.}

^{AR: What works did you exhibit?}
^{IR: I exhibited work I had brought from Namibia – the Power and Politics series from my first exhibition Flying Solo, and the Memories Series from a solo exhibition I had at the Goethe Center, Windhoek, in 2005. Two of the exhibitions were planned before I’d left Namibia, and the third arose from an invitation by the Mayor of Reinekendorf. She had opened my first exhibition and asked me to exhibit there.}

^{AR: Could you tell me more about the work you exhibited?}
^{IR: Power and Politics looks at the history and politics of Namibia from my personal point of view, exploring the themes power and oppression. The dog is a recurring theme in this series and represents society, the misuse of power by politicians and submissiveness of the vulnerable. The dog is considered ‘Man’s best friend’, but remains a potentially dangerous and unpredictable animal. My works contemplate issues like oppression, discrimination, abuse, racial conflicts and political power struggles.}
^{I am one of the first Namibian artists to use digital media in my art. My digital prints are a result of a cyclic process of drawing, painting, erasing, scanning, digitally manipulating, printing and again reworking the piece by hand, and are often based on images found in the printed news media. Through this process, the meaning of the original images and concepts gets revised, erased, reinterpreted and obscured. This approach is an integral part of the context of the works. Any situation can be manipulated or viewed from different perspectives and can reveal a multitude of layers of seemingly opposing realities.}
^{In the Memories series I worked with the memories of childhood, specifically that of my mother. When she was seven weeks old (24 December 1940) her father, like most German men living in Namibia at the time, was sent to a concentration camp in South Africa by the English forces. My mother saw her father again for the first time when she was six years old, after they were allowed to visit him in South Africa.}
^{Growing up without a father and then, suddenly, six years later having a ‘stranger’ move back into their home and taking over the reigns was not easy to accept for a small child. The father/daughter relationship was always strained and the memories shaped my mothers life, and also inadvertently, mine. It fascinated me how different people perceive or remember the same event. Stories told by my mother, my grandmother, relatives and people who knew the family all differ.}
^{I got a box full of postcards from my grandmother. She had sent these to my grandfather while he was in the concentration camp. She would attach a photo of my mother and wrote in the voice of her young daughter. These postcards are records of memories; of my mother’s childhood and of my grandmother’s perception of things - her hopes and fears which, again, could be re-interpreted by anybody who reads them today. These images form the basis of the project.}

^{AR: What was the reaction to your exhibitions?}
^{IR: The public in Germany were very interested in Memories. People related to it because of the similarities in German history. Men went off to war, or were interned for long periods of time, and children grew up not really knowing their fathers. Or, later in their history, friends and families were split along political divides and their histories (memories) rewritten. What I found surprising and important was just how united people felt by these themes common to both Namibia and Germany.}
^{The first reaction to Power and Politics was: “Typical Africa”.}
^{However, as a result of consequent talks at schools and universities, I used the art to educate the audience about Namibia. For example, I got asked about the Herero genocide and used my own personal family history to illustrate how some Namibian Germans assisted indigenous communities during times of political oppression.}
^{The German people appreciated the opportunity to discuss their ignorance of Namibia and their misconception that everything in Africa is going wrong. I believe they gained a greater appreciation for people living in Africa.}

^{AR: What was the most important thing that you learned from this experience?}
^{IR: I realised the opportunity to start something bigger regarding art and culture in Namibia, and the possibility of future exchanges between Berlin and Namibia. I think it is vital to place African art on the world stage, and that the West appreciates how serious Africa is about art and how much it has to offer the rest of the world.}

^{AR: Anything else you would like to add?}
^{IR: Yes. I would like to thank Dr. Peter Katjavivi, Namibian Ambassador to Germany, for his immense support while I was there. I would also like to thank Klaus Wowereit, the governing Mayor of Berlin. And, of course, Mr. Oliver Schruoffeneger, a member of Berlin’s Parliament, for his incredible effort and assistance, and who I envision working with again in the near future.}

^{Read more courtesy of The Economist, Namibia}

POST SCRIPT
Mr. Schruoffeneger spent last week in Windhoek hammering out ideas for art and culture projects between Germany and Namibia. The outcomes of his week are presently a secret, but I have been promised a scoop in the near future.