Namibian artist Nicola Brandt reflects on colonial memory, identity and landscape in a book that interrogates history, representation and remembrance in Namibia and beyond.
Her work, which includes photography, video and installation, explores memories, colonial histories, displacement and environmental change in Namibia and South Africa.
The artist, who is of German and South African descent, is based in Berlin, Windhoek and Cape Town. She also writes and researches, holding a doctorate from the University of Oxford.
Last year has been eventful for Brandt. She married into the prominent Mouton family and gave birth to her first child, a son. Husband Jan’s father, Jannie Mouton, founded PSG Group, an investment firm that formed the basis of the family’s widely documented fortune.
The Distance Within is a substantial, visually rich book, edited by Alexandra Dodd and published by Steidl Verlag. With 392 pages and 253 images, it blends photography, archival materials, and essays Brandt says she has created over more than a decade.
“In this project, I reflect on my German and Namibian heritage and disrupt some of the familiar, often romanticised ways in which Namibia has been represented. Over the years, I have travelled extensively through the country, documenting landscapes, people, structures and encounters to trace the layered — and often uncomfortable — elements underlying histories of German colonialism, national socialism, and apartheid,” she says.
Brandt says these histories surface in many forms, from something as fragile and personal as a collapsing roadside cairn to official memorials that acknowledge, contest, or resist colonial violence.
“Alongside the images, I have included texts by thinkers whose work has shaped my understanding, as well as archival materials from both public and private collections. Together, these elements help me examine the blind spots that persist in how these histories are viewed or overlooked.”
She says the project advocates for the recovery of suppressed narratives and identities, challenging inherited notions of whiteness, “and ultimately attempting to make visible what has long remained unseen”.
Growing up in Namibia has influenced her work, she says. “The values of my immediate surroundings were those of a middle-class, largely white community with historical ties to northern Europe and South Africa — a context that made me deeply ambivalent towards my roots.”
Through the book Brandt says she tries to reflect critically on her inheritance and to question and deconstruct certain perspectives. She says a recurring challenge was to continually challenge the romanticised views of whiteness. This was apart from the difficulties of often travelling alone as a woman or accepting the unexpected invitation to wear the Herero dress.
“Namibia continues to be commodified as the land of wide-open spaces, celebrated for its culture and wildlife. Luxury safaris and curated vistas often perpetuate a nostalgic lens that clings to outdated visions of colonial Africa.
“These idyllic representations reveal nothing about conquest, dispossession or forced migration, nor about the need for restitution or equitable land distribution,” she says.
The book will be valuable for curious, critically engaged visitors who want to deepen their understanding of Namibia
— Nicola Brandt
Brandt believes the book will be valuable for curious, critically engaged visitors who want to deepen their understanding of the country — appreciating its historical complexity and striking contradictions.
“For example, the Herero dress is enigmatic and beautiful, even if its origins are tied to conservative European dress codes, trauma and dispossession,” she says.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. We are again witnessing in the world how those once aligned with victims can become perpetrators; perhaps we all carry both victim and perpetrator within us? Depending on circumstance, either may emerge.”
Brandt believes critical reflection — shaped by art, reading and education — might guide us towards better choices.
“This way of working is an invitation to look more closely. There is a kind of everyday blindness. We grow accustomed to the spaces we inhabit, and often project our values and assumptions onto what we see rather than letting the encounter reshape our understanding.”
When asked which historical site in Namibia’s capital Windhoek she’d recommend to curious visitors, she says: “Start in the heart of Windhoek, where the city’s story is written in stone, and increasingly in its removal.”
The city centre has witnessed the dramatic toppling of icons, with the Reiterdenkmal monument coming down in 2009, and the Curt von François statue dismantled in 2022.
It’s a place where, as reviewer Sean Sheehan observes, an infamous equestrian monument once “announced the inflexible power of brute domination”, its booted foot aimed squarely at the colonial-era church and fort — a legacy both visible and contested.
Brandt also recommends visiting the Herero and Nama graveyard at Swakopmund.
“The genocide memorial’s inscription was updated in 2020 to reflect a more direct and uncompromising historical narrative. It’s a powerful place to reflect on the past.”
Additionally, Shark Island at Lüderitz, a former concentration camp used by the Germans during the Herero and Nama genocide of 1904 to 1908, is “a site of profound memory politics and ongoing contestation”.
Brandt says the Ohamakari/Waterberg area is sacred to the Ovaherero. “Centuries-old wild fig trees are said to have carried ancestors down from heaven, and it’s where many fled and died during the genocide.”
She also recommends visiting Messum Crater, deep in the Namib Desert. “It’s a majestic geological formation dating back 130-million years, older than human memory itself.”
Brandt says she had to make seven trips to Göttingen in four years to work closely with publisher Steidl Verlag. Often called the “king of printing”, Gerhard Steidl has earned this reputation through hands-on collaboration. “We worked side by side on everything from scissor-and-glue mock-ups to proof reviews and material choices. His philosophy is simple: The book should realise the artist’s vision, not the demands of the market,” Brandt says.
She says Steidl’s dedication means long days — he is often up at 4am, moving between the printing press, his office, and the library — and his production remains entirely independent and artisanal.
Everything happens under one roof, she says. He uses specialised processes and even pushes beyond standard methods. The quality of the ink is non-negotiable, she says.
“Every visit I made to Steidl involved further refinement of the design ... He oversaw every printed sheet, working in a white coat on the factory floor with the precision of a craftsperson and the discipline of a scientist. I came away with firsthand experience in the art of bookmaking from start to finish.”
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