Decolonising the Arts

With the ‘Fees Must Fall’ movements in neighbouring South Africa as well as our very own Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) students rejecting fee hikes in early 2016, paired with the College of the Arts (Cota) students fighting against their courses being cut a few months ago, Namibians like their African counterparts have mobilised to fight for their right to education.

Where Namibia’s ‘free education’ may potentially be on the cutting block, and adages like “education is the greatest equaliser” ringing true in our ears, education and the right to it should be at the forefront of every Namibian’s mind.

But in Namibia, not all education is created equal. While some schools are trying to integrate arts programmes into their curricula, in many educational circles, the arts are still not taken seriously.

Many Namibian artists have grown up in households that taught them their dreams of pursuing the arts were a waste of time. They were encouraged to be doctors and engineers, and while these are noble professions which are needed, equally the world and Namibia needs its artists.

Beyond practical applications like the artists who become architects who plan the buildings that we turn into our homes, our hospitals, our art galleries and our libraries to the artists who study design and create everything from the clothes we wear and the furniture in our homes to the cars we drive.

Artists also answer to a greater call of asking us to engage with each other. They ask us uncomfortable questions about ourselves, our communities and society in general. They mobilise us to fight for what we hold dear in the world.

Art should not be seen as a luxury but rather an intrinsic part of who we are as human beings – and it is time that it is treated as such.

A workshop titled ‘Decolonising Arts Education’ took place at the John Muafangejo Arts Centre (JMAC) gallery at the Katutura Community Arts Centre (KCAC) on 10 and 11 August. The workshop was initiated and facilitated by performance artist, academic and curator Jacques Mushaandja.

Many think of decolonising by tearing down statues and buildings that were once erected by colonisers, but decolonising oneself and the arts goes much deeper than that.

JMAC was started in 1998 as an homage to one of Namibia’s best known artists, the late John Muafangejo. Meant to keep his legacy alive and foster support and programmes for up and coming artists, JMAC has also been central in discussions and workshops about the contemporary position of Namibia’s arts. It is only fitting that they facilitated the two-day workshop which came after an open call to artists, educators, cultural leaders and all stakeholders and followed the lead of our regional neighbours in trying to decolonise practices and engagements with Namibian arts pedagogies.

Hugh Ellis, a journalism lecturer at NUST, began the first presentation by discussing how photography can be used as a form of empowerment. Ellis initiated the discussion by deconstructing how photography was initially used in Namibia, by mostly white male photographers who depicted indigenous people from an ‘othering’ and exotifying gaze.

He did ethnographical research by working as a faciliator for various NGOs and minority groups by training them in photography so that they could use the medium to represent themselves “by involving marginalised people in image-making so that the privileged can learn to see differently. Photography is valuable in decolonisation because it shows us pictures we choose not to see,” he said.

Next up was Trixie Munyama, a dance lecturer at Cota, who began her presentation by asking the workshop attendees to question how they approach African dance and classical ballet.

When they were asked to describe different dances after watching two short video clips, words like ‘disciplined’ and ‘refined’ were used to describe ballet, while words like ‘unity’, ‘freedom’ and even ‘primitive’ were used to describe African dance.

Munyama challenged the attendees to question how our notions and ideas about these two dance forms came into being.

She explained that some of her students were having trouble grasping some aspects of classical ballet training as the movements were not as instinctual to them as the local traditional dances, but by including both in their learning process, she was able to train them in what is dubbed as ‘classical ways’, but also to embrace their traditional roots in their training.

She called on dancers to embrace their roots instead of seeing them as inferior. “The West is now looking at us for inspiration. There is a lot of collaboration with African dancers and Western dance companies and there is a greater appreciation for the two to work together,” she said.

While many of us may be able to recite prose from Shakespeare, how many of us can recite the same from Namibian playwrights?

Performing arts lecturer at Cota David Ndjavera offered the decolonisation perspective of Namibian theatre. From talking about how the performing arts were an integral part of our societies in terms of storytelling, singing and dancing, he lamented that “today, 27 years after independence, the performing arts are still not part of the formal education in Namibia”.

He spoke of one way to decolonise theatre is “for African theatres to be allowed into mainstream theatre spaces, to enjoy a status of substance equal in value to that of the conventional”.

He urged that “while we should not dislike Western approaches to theatre and its theories, we also should not impose Eurocentric approaches to art education”.

The workshop ended with members writing a vision for what a decolonised arts education for Namibia would look like. The answer? More integrated and inclusive. Framed by a pedagogy that focuses on and benefits Namibian arts.

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