SunBorn Lullabies and Battle Cries 
By Memory Biwa

Audiowork 

Historian Memory Biwa combines memory, the sonic, and archival theory. Her piece, which is conceived as an ‘aural procession’, of a lullaby sung at dawn, battle cries, chants, ululations, bow-playing, and landscapes trace narratives of colonial violence and re-enactments of resistance in Namibia. These traces are drawn from aural, sartorial and performative practices which inform notions of subjectivity and the re-centering of alternative epistemologies and imaginaries.

The piece was co-produced with Robert ‘Chi’ Machiri.

The sound recordings are of:

Elder Jarimbovandu Alex Kaputu (Ceremonial Chief Priest of the Holy Fire, and Lieutenant General of the Red Flag),  Ovaherero and Nama delegation (including Genocide Committees), Human remains viewing/ceremony at Charite University Hospital, Berlin, September 2011, recording by Larissa Foerster

Elders Lena Venter, and Fritz //Hamaseb, Okahandja, central Namibia,1954, Ernst and Ruth Dammann Sound Collection, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel.

Swimming pool waterfall at Spa, Klein-Windhoek (a place of early settlement near hot springs), Windhoek, August 2020, recording by Memory Biwa

Listen here.

Memory Biwa resides in Windhoek, Namibia. Her research combines memory, performance, sound studies and archival theory. Her research on narratives and performance, as archive, informs notions of subjectivity and the re-centering of alternative epistemologies and imaginaries. Biwa has worked at the National Archives in Windhoek, as a visiting ‘curator’ in a historical museum, and even lived in a museum in Berlin. Since 2016, Biwa and Robert Machiri have collaborated on, ‘Listening at Pungwe’, an exploratory transnational sonic project.