The Mourning Citizen

WINDHOEK, MARCH 26 – The Mourning Citizen is an extension of The Mourning, an original body of work conceptualised by Trixie Munyama in 2016.
This time around, the work interrogates the underlay of the genocide as a historical focal point which continues haunting our present.

This performance art is an onsite – collaboration between visual designers Hildegard Titus, Vitjitua Ndjiharine, Nicola Brandt and Isabel Katjavivi, Da-mâi Dance Ensemble, Directed by Trixie Munyama and Curated by Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja,

The Mourning Citizen Come is a highly immersive artistic intervention featuring visuals, soundscapes and performance art, bringing a personal experience as he ‘audience’ become part of the performance too.

For one night only, the performance is included as part of the Symposium – Colonial Injustice: Addressing Past Wrongs, organised by the The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, the Goethe-Institut Namibia and the Academy of Arts (Berlin) with a focus on COLONIAL REPERCUSSIONS: REFLECTING ON THE GENOCIDE OF THE OVAHERERO AND NAMA PEOPLES 115 YEARS LATER in Windhoek. During this event, various voices will have space to discuss and interact.

Juridical, historical and cultural considerations of the occurrence in that time, its importance for a present cohabitation and the creation of a mutual future, will be at the centre of the symposium.

This event is the first part of ‘Namibia: A Week of Justice’, from 25 – 30 March 2019. Together with the Ovaherero Genocide Foundation (OGF), the Nama Traditional Leaders Association (NTLA), the Nama Genocide Technical Committee (NGTC), Akademie der Künste (AdK) and ECCHR will be invited to the international conference “International Law in Postcolonial Contexts.”

The following statement guides The Mourning Citizen to be presented on Tuesday 26 March 2019 at 19h30 beginning with a procession from the Goethe Institute to the performance space, the Alte Feste. Entrance is free to the public.
Our collective devised process begins with asking ourselves, how do we mourn? Who holds a passport to mourn?

We find our acts, rituals and archives of mourning in our cultures, communities and far between spaces of…
“HEALING & TRAUMATIZING
CLEANSING & ERASURE
CARE & VIOLENCE
PRAYING & CURSING
WEEPING & WHIPPING
We are deeply concerned about how Namibian patriarchal nationalism has denied us the right to mourn.
We recognize how culture and memory has been captured and demobilized in the new dispensation.
We also know that the Ministry of Mourning and Restorative Justice is none existent. Therapy is expensive.
We acknowledge the unaccounted bones that litter the land. The ancestors are not asleep.
We are aware of the haunted public sites. Ghosts dancing and singing the struggle.
We smell the blood shed on the roads.
We hold the trauma of the body, the trauma of the unborn
The trauma of Hamakari
The trauma of Shark Island
The trauma of Apartheid
The trauma of Christianity
The trauma of Heteronormativity
The trauma of Lubango Dungeons
The trauma of Katutura and Neo-colonialism
The trauma of Gukurahundi
The trauma of HIV/AIDS
The trauma of Gender-based Violence

We are the Mourning Citizens.” – NDN Staffer