Kavena Hambira and Miriam Gleckman-Krut's residency with Memory for the Future centers their multi-directional memory work on the first genocide of the twentieth century, the Herero and Nama Genocide in present-day Namibia in 1905. Over several weeks they are engaging the lab in the study of this "forgotten genocide," and the public humanities approaches they employ in their commemorative intervention, including filmmaking, visual art, and public scholarship. Their residency culminates in a public event at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, featuring their reparative memory work. Details of events related to their residency are shared below and through our event page.
For more about their work see their bios further below, and read their 2021 Op-Ed:Germany Apologized for a Genocide. It's Nowhere Enough, New York Times, July 8, 2021
The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum will present the film “Nuh-Mi Bee-Uhn” directed by Kavena Hambira on March 12. The film “focuses on the twentieth century’s first genocide—the Herero and Nama Genocide, carried out by Germany in 1905 in his family’s native Namibia. Hambira bridges geography and time to describe the indelible and far-reaching impacts of the genocide and the ongoing struggle for reparations and reconciliation.” The film will be accompanied by a discussion with Hambira and his colleagues, Miriam Gleckman-Krut, a sociology doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Michael Tjivikua, a preeminent Namibian scholar who advises the Ovaherero Traditional Authority. The discussion will examine the continuities and discontinuities between Germany's colonial-era genocide in Namibia and the Holocaust in Europe.
Register Here
Kavena Hambira, MFA (he/ him)
With his work grounded in documentary filmmaking, Hambira seeks to connect nodes of history that tell a story of shared resilience and invention despite ongoing colonial and racial oppression. While his earlier work documented families impacted by police violence, his current work focuses on the twentieth century’s first genocide—the Herero and Nama Genocide, carried out by Germany in 1905 in his family’s native Namibia. Engaging textiles and traditional costumes alongside documentary film, here Hambira bridged geography and time to describe the indelible and far-reaching impacts of the genocide and the ongoing struggle for reparations and reconciliation." Kavena holds an master’s in fine art (MFA) from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently a Post-Graduate Fellow in the UC Berkeley Department of Art Practice.
Miriam Gleckman-Krut (she/her)
Miriam Gleckman-Krut is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on state efforts to erase evidence of mass atrocity. Her dissertation, The Rainbow Nation and the Gays it Excludes, analyzes South Africa's provision of refugee status for people fleeing persecution related to sexual orientation. More recently, she and Hambira have collaborated on written and cinematographic work to think across Germany's twentieth-century genocides. An unknown number of Miriam's family were killed in the Holocaust.
