‘They are disturbing the dead’: reconstructing the site of the forgotten first genocide of the 20th century
The article reports on a new exhibition in Berlin, 'Fractured Lifeworlds', presented by Forensic Architecture and Forensis, which reconstructs the forgotten genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples in German South West Africa (modern-day Namibia) from 1905 to 1907. The exhibition, originally shown at Namibia’s National Art Gallery, uses films, geological research, and oral testimony to document the concentration camp on Shark Island, where at least 3,000 prisoners died, and to identify unmarked mass graves. It also highlights the ongoing Hyphen green hydrogen project, which threatens to disturb burial grounds as the Lüderitz port expands.