Laura Horelli’s Namibia Today in the group exhibition “Revolutionary Romances – Prologue” in Albertinum, Dresden

Laura Horelli’s Namibia Today (2017) is included in the group exhibition “Revolutionary Romances – Prologue” in Albertinum, Dresden. The exhibition is open until July 17 2022.

The exhibition and research project Revolutionary Romances. Transcultural Art Histories in the GDR focuses on the cultural relationships between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the socialist-oriented countries and independence movements of the Global South in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the period 1949-1990. The interventions by contemporary artists Ângela Ferreira, Emeka Ogboh, Laura Horelli, and Sung Tieu are integrated into the collection presentation of the Albertinum, critically question the former ideals of the “Revolutionary Romances” and illuminate their historical and artistic significance from the perspective of the present.

In Namibia Today, seven people wait in an underground station below Karl-Marx-Allee in former East Berlin. Billboards line the walls, each combining a front page of “Namibia Today” with associative material. “Namibia Today” was a journal of the Namibian liberation movement, which was printed and distributed by GDR during times of military confrontation with South Africa.

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.


“Revolutionary Romances – Prologue”, April 13 – July 17 2022, Albertinum, Dresden, Germany

More information: Albertinum