08.11.2025 – Living and Representing ‘The Distance Within’
Namibian-born artist and author Nicola Brandt is launching ‘The Distance Within’ in Windhoek.
In her review Heike Becker highlights how The Distance Within combines striking visual imagery with thoughtful essays to explore the interlinked German and Namibian colonial pasts and their ongoing effects on memory, identity, and landscape, situating Brandt’s work as both aesthetically powerful and intellectually probing. She emphasizes the book’s engagement with entrenched narratives of land dispossession, colonial representation, and post-colonial transformation, noting how the images and collaborations with Namibian artists and activists complicate conventional memory practices. Becker also commends the work for navigating Brandt’s own positionality and advocating for decolonial solidarity and future-oriented memory work that moves beyond guilt toward inclusive, creative dialogues about history and identity.
Read the full article here:
https://www.namibian.com.na/living-and-representing-the-distance-within
