Two works by Laura Horelli, Namibia Today (2018) and Uutisten aika (2019) are shown in a joint exhibition Black Women, Art and Resistance | Changes in Direction, curated by Heidi Brunnschweiler for Gallery E-Werk, Freiburg, from February 23 to April 14.
In her private exhibition Changes in Direction, Laura Horelli presents two topics and shows how colonial history continued to have an effect on the Cold War period and has its impact till today.
In the work group Namibia Today, the artist traces the GDR’s relationship to Namibia, the former colony of Germany. In the medium of a film installation, she examines the history of Namibia Today, the magazine of the Namibian liberation movement (SWAPO) that was printed in the GDR.
Uutisten aika (Newstime) is a new film with found-footage dealing with cultural differences, being an outsider, Namibia’s struggle for independence and Finland’s long-term relation with the SWAPO. On the images level, we see archive material from the Finnish broadcast station YLE. On the soundtrack we meet Ellen Ndeshi Namhila, a well-known writer and historian from Namibia, who reads from her autobiography The Price of Freedom. In the 1980s Namhila came via an academic programme to Tampere, a small town in Finland, where she studied library science. In parallel to Namhila’s personal narrative we learn through the historical film footage of the official history of those years.
Laura Horelli (b. 1976, Helsinki) lives in Berlin and works with experimental documentary video. She is interested in representations and mediations of the past taking on a microhistorical approach. Her works have been exhibited at Venice Biennale (2001, 2009), Manifesta 5, (2004), ARS 11, Kiasma (2001, 2011), Galerie Barbara Weiss (2003, 2007, 2011) and Badischer Kunstverein (2014). She has participated in film festivals like Berlinale Forum Expanded (2017, 2018), ISFF Oberhausen (2018), IndieLisboa (2017), Kasseler Dokfest (2013) and CPH:DOX (2009). In 2011, she received the Hannah Höch Prize for Young Artists.
Laura Horelli: Changes in Direction, February 23 – April 14 2019, E-Werk, Freiburg, Germany
More information: E-Werk