Jim Naughten is a London-based artist, whose book “Conflict and Costume” is soon to be published. In anticipation, he has released a series of portraits of the Namibian tribe of the Hereros. A colony of the Germany Namibia has a tumultious history, which is what makes the tribe’s choice to wear Victorian dresses and parliamentary costume that represent this brutal era of control so interesting. In the 1904 war between the Hereros and the German colonizers more than 80 per cent of their tribe was wiped out. During this time clothing became an important expression of defiance. Upon killing a German soldier a Herero tribesman would remove his uniform and wear it as a sign of proud defiance. And so the tradition has continued…
Naughten beautifully explains his work in his artist’s statement:
“By composing these portraits against the Namibian landscape — one of unforgiving intensity but also of silent witness — there is an enlivening that takes place in an otherwise frozen moment. The still space, the direct gaze, the re-appropriated cloth combine
to curate a stillness that allows the past to speak.”
