BAB Interviews and Conversations

BAB Interviews and Conversations

Tuli Mekondjo‘s art performance „Ousie Martha“

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The Namibian artist Tuli Mekondjo reflects in this conversation about her work in the colonial image archives of the Basler Afrika Bibliographien and how this led her to initiate new artistic practices and conceptualise and design a new art performance. «Ousie Martha» references generations of African laundry women in Namibia as wage labourers in white settler homes, often depicted in settler family photography. Inventing an outdoor print technique with copies of one particular photograph of a laundry woman in Okahandja in 1953 from the BAB photo archives, Tuli Mekondjo produced embroided «lappies« (rags) and choreographed a laundry woman’s performance of Self at the BAB in April 2023.

In this extract from a conversation with BAB curators, Tuli Mekondjo explains the genesis of her latest work and why she wanted to have the premiere of her performance to be staged at the archives in Switzerland. «I wanted to engage with the ancestral voices by responding, singing with them, mimicking their acts of labouring while they sang. I wanted to bring Ousie Martha into that space, but to do the laundry for her.” As she told The Namibian newspaper after the Basel performance: “In Switzerland, Germany and Europe in general, they need to be reminded of the horrors of colonialism and the traumas they inflicted” (10 May 2023)

“Ousie Martha” - Tuli Mekondjo’s performance at the Basler Afrika Bibliographien, April 2023. Photographer: Raluca-Maria Marcu.

“Ousie Martha” - Tuli Mekondjo’s performance at the Basler Afrika Bibliographien, April 2023. Photographer: Raluca-Maria Marcu.


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About this podcast

BAB is a centre of documentation and expertise on Namibia and southern Africa, located in Basel, Switzerland. Our podcast features extracts from past and recent interviews with scholars and BAB guests as well as selected recordings from the extensive southern African historical audio archive curated at the BAB.

The series maintains a loose format. Listeners may also want to consult the BAB online catalogues of the archive, library and publishing house for additional information about a scholar or theme. The catalogues are found on www.baslerafrika.ch.

by Basler Afrika Bibliographien (BAB) - Namibia Resource Centre & Southern Africa Library

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