“Ombazu yaKouHerero yazikama okuza kororowa.” A studio in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Simon Tjimbawe has chosen this location to answer questions sent by a museum in Braunschweig. The museum is exhibiting Chief Kahimemua’s belt, which will be soon given back to Namibia. Kahimemua was an Ovambanderu leader, who was executed by Germans in 1896. His descendants are related to Tjimbawe’s family.
Biography
Laura Horelli is a visual artist and filmmaker living in Berlin. She has been researching the historical relations between Namibia and Germany since 2016, particularly the relationship of the liberation movement SWAPO and the East German state during the Cold War. Horelli was born in Helsinki, grew up partly in Nairobi and London.
Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions, among others at the Photographic Gallery Hippolyte, Helsinki; John Muafangejo Art Centre Gallery, Windhoek; Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin; Muu galleria, Helsinki; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; Ludlow38 Curatorial Residencies, New York.
She has participated in various group exhibitions and workshops, including in the frame of the Neue Dauerausstellung zur Ethnologisches Sammlung des Städtischen Museum Braunschweig; Sprengel Museum Hannover; Albertinum, Dresden; Kleine Humboldt Galerie, Berlin; 68. Berlinale, 13. Forum Expanded; Istanbul Modern; Galleria D’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Momentum 7, Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art; Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; The 53th Venice Biennale (the Danish and Nordic Pavilions); Göteborgs konsthall, Göteborg; Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM); Nobel Peace Centre, Oslo; Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels; The 6th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju; Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin; University of Namibia, Windhoek / Swakopmund Museum; HKW, Berlin; Sinema Transtopia, Berlin; Kino Arsenal, Berlin; 69. Berlinale, 14. Forum Expanded; Transmediale, Berlin.
Simon Tjimbawe is a Herero born in West Berlin. His father was a member of the liberation movement SWANU who studied economics in Leipzig in the 1960s. He is a film sound mixer and lives and works in Berlin.
