Kohl captures time and light

Esteemed analogue photographer Helga Kohl first began watching the changing dunes in the rooms of Kolmanskop in 1971.

As the rare sight of Kohl delights visitors at Windhoek’s The Project Room, the photographer observes patrons pausing in front of her celebrated frames, each of them a window into what became of a once thriving diamond town in southern Namibia.

An ode to Kohl’s practice of spending countless hours waiting for the magic of waxing and waning light, the exhibition is titled ‘Time & Light’ and features images from Kolmanskop (1993-1997), Elizabeth Bay and abstracts of Windhoek’s city centre.

Much has transpired since Kohl first captured Kolmankop’s strangely beautiful scenes of reclamation and decay, yet the photographer remembers her first encounter like it was yesterday.

“The notorious ‘Southwester’ wind had created an inferno of sand and dust that was so intense, it was difficult to set one foot in front of the other. It was amid this chaos of nature that I first made my acquaintance with this very unique place,” writes Kohl in an artist statement.

“On that particular day, a personal journey began, and a secret bond was born, a bond that would cause me to return again and again to this strange, haunted ghost-like place in the desert,” she says.

“This ghost town touched my soul and challenged my passion as an artist to capture the sheer beauty and essence of this place. Many gruelling and obsessive hours have I spent in quiet contemplation and companionship with Kolmanskop.”

Kohl says the result of this union is shown in her photographic portraits. In them, sand pours through windows and doors and into relatively opulent rooms that recall the town’s diamond boom.

In 1908, when Namibia (then German South-West Africa) was still under colonial rule, a railroad worker named Zacharias Lewala found a diamond while clearing the tracks.

Lewala showed the stone to his supervisor and the railroad worker’s find drew crowds of prospectors to the area. Many of the initial diamond miners made their fortunes mining the diamond fields but the well dried up by the 1930s as a new diamond detection drew prospectors’ attention. Lewala was never compensated for his discovery. Kolmanskop was quickly abandoned for other glittering shores and residents left their homes to history and the creeping sand.

In Kohl’s images, one sees echoes of this rise and fall. The sun streams into a bathroom as a tub seems to float on a desert sea. A stove survives in a room bathed in shadow and in fading light and a recreation hall seems unbothered by the elements.

What’s left of a once gilded town is a point of fascination and speaks to the relentless essence of time. It marches on, nature prevails and memory endures only inasmuch as we continue to tell stories of what was and what remains.

Kohl’s story is one of passion, time and light. As patrons view the work of her decades-long career at a recent opening, Kohl quietly watches the gallery room much like she observed Kolmanskop all those years ago.

“It was in these moments of solitude that I transformed myself into the past,” writes Kohl. “And in so doing, saw a colourful life which somehow brought a profound understanding of the present.”

‘Time & Light’ will be on display at Windhoek’s The Project Room until 11 April.

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com

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