11 minute read
THE LANDSCAPE OF HERITAGE with Gina Figueira
WITH GINA FIGUEIRA
THE LANDSCAPE OF HERITAGE
Gina Figueira has spent her whole life surrounded by art. The daughter of the late Tony Figueira, the famous Namibian photographer and journalist, Gina was a curator at the National Art Gallery of Namibia before founding StArt Art Gallery with her friend Helen Harris. Through the gallery’s website, international collectors have purchased impressive works such as the large-scale sculpture of Africa by Fillipus Sheehama. Gina has since completed her master’s at the University of Leeds in England as part of a Chevening Scholarship, and is in the process of restarting StArt Art Gallery’s physical activities in Namibia while it’s online presence continues to grow.
ON CHOOSING A CAREER IN THE ARTS
When I left school I was told, like many people who go into the arts, that you can’t really make a living, that it’s just a hobby and you shouldn’t really put all of your eggs into that basket. Fortunately, I had a father who was making a living from his passion for the arts, so that was quite an inspiration. I was really interested in the sciences as well, so right up to applying for universities I was like, “Gosh, should I go the science route? Should I go the art route?” And then there was just a distinct moment when I knew that I had to go the art route. Thank goodness for my dad’s inspiration – saying you can do it, you can live from your passion.
ON BEING THE DAUGHTER OF TONY FIGUEIRA
Growing up with a photographer as a father, I have the most incredibly welldocumented childhood. There was always a camera around. He was always there, pushing me to challenge myself and to pursue the things that I wanted to pursue. It continues to be quite a wonderful experience. I was very, very lucky to have him as a father. When I started working at the National Art Gallery of Namibia, everyone saw me as Tony Figueira’s daughter. I was also a very young curator in a very large institution, which came with its own set of challenges, on top of being the daughter of this person that the [art] scene knew. I would sometimes find myself in a position where someone would be trying to talk to me as somebody’s daughter instead of in a professional relationship, in a little bit of a patronising way. It’s something I’ve come to terms with now. The time away from Windhoek was good. To not be known for my surname. And then when I got married, it also brought up that question, but I knew I wanted to keep my surname. I think I have come through the whole thing of not wanting to be known as Tony’s
daughter to be embracing it. It took me a while. Because he was in the arts world, I was driven a lot in those months after he died to start the gallery, because I knew he would have been super proud. That was how I managed to do that and not collapse. Coming back, I’m now living in the city centre, close to where his studio was, and it’s been weird, and also really lovely. You need space, and you need a community and a support network, but even with that you need space.
ON GRIEF
I had preparation [for his death]. We had a lot of time together, we’d said the things we wanted to say. That’s why my whole world didn’t turn upside-down. When I look back on it now, it was a whole seven years of preparing for the worst. Not that he didn’t fight. But him possibly not being around was something I’d been thinking about for a long time. And then after my dad died, everyone knowing who I was, it was hard. I had to understand that people were coming from a good place, because people wanted to share their grief and share their condolences, but it was also very overwhelming a lot of times. There was this weird familiarity that people tried to approach me with, because they knew my dad, and so suddenly they knew me, and so that had its challenges in my professional environment, and in my private life. Even before he was in the arts world everyone knew him because he was a journalist and panel-beater. I felt like at some point I couldn’t breathe without seeing the memory of him everywhere. It was tough.
You don’t change unless there’s a little bit of discomfort. So we must push ourselves. Sometimes these things happen, and you are forced into this discomfort and then you have to navigate that. And grief is definitely something that happens outside of your control that then pushes you to change. You need to take control – control of your
emotions, of the direction you want to go in.
The one thing that I always hold on to, that he always said, was that he asked himself in his photography, in his life goals, in
everything that he wanted to do, “What is missing from this
situation that I could add, that would make a difference?”
That’s something I’ve embraced completely because it is relevant in every single part of life – at work, in your personal relationships, in the art that you make. What is missing from this, that if I were to add it would speak a different volume or make for more depth or a broader understanding or connection with more people.
ON THE SUBJECT OF HER DISSERTATION: THE REITERDENKMAL
I was looking particularly at the Reiterdenkmal and how when it was removed there was a big outcry. And I thought, “This is interesting – people really love this statue.” There’s still this clinging on to that heritage. And that forms a large part of how German-Namibians identify themselves. That forms a conundrum for a lot of them – people will understand that they come from a clearly colonialist history but also identify as Namibian and feel like there’s something being taken away from them when people talk about colonialism. And they feel like their right to being Namibian is being questioned. This is, of course, a broad generalisation. I’m talking about the heritage landscape. The research was very interesting. That silhouette of the Reiterdenkmal is used in a lot of Namibian advertising online, European advertising tourism to Namibia and heritage sites. Even during colonial times, that figure became an advertisement that they would send back to Germany to encourage people to take land opportunities in Namibia. My argument is that what often happens is that people celebrate their heritage – like the Reiterdenkmal, like the laying of wreaths for soldiers that died – and at the same time neglect other heritages. It isn’t necessarily a problem
to celebrate your heritage, but I think there is a problem when you don’t realise that your heritage has a colonial past. I think that it’s dangerous to have a celebration at the expense of someone else’s heritage. When your grasp of your heritage and your desire to celebrate your heritage neglects the complexity of that heritage, I think it can be very harmful for social cohesion.
There’s a lot of people of Herero descent who don’t have access to their family because you do have access to your family. Your German ancestors survived because their ancestors were killed, and when you start looking at it like that, you know, you start realising, your heritage came at someone else’s expense. My research linked German colonial ideas of heritage to something called “authorised heritage discourse”, which is how one heritage is prioritised over another. And how, even though the German descendants are the minority of the population, their heritage is given so much authority. The Reiterdenkmal is the only one of the statues that been moved out of public view – you can still go see it – and yet there was such a huge outcry. There were court threats and death threats, and it just shows that that authority given to the German colonial heritage is constructed. It was constructed that way by German colonialism – it’s not the given. We didn’t just all arrive here. So, once we start to understand that, we realize this is all a very uneven balance of representation.
ON IDENTITY AND THE POWER OF NAMES
I have Portuguese heritage, English heritage. My mum’s family came to South Africa from England as part of efforts to bolster the white population in South Africa. My grandfather came from Portugal to work as a mechanic in Angola in colonial times. I think it’s very important to be aware of the legacies of our heritage. And if you go around without understanding that, you can be harmful in your existence. And I’m trying to be the least
harmful that I can be, because I know that my ancestors were very harmful in their existence. Even if they weren’t violent, even if they weren’t immoral, they were still benefiting from a particularly violent structure.
You can still love your ancestors, where you’ve come from.
They had hard lives in different ways, but they didn’t have hard lives because of their race. It’s just about understanding the systems that we live in as well as the
people that are living in them. I’m saying, “Yes, I love my dad – he was a great guy,” but even he was also a beneficiary. Even though he was liberal, even though he was an activist, he was still benefiting because he was white, and we had a lot of discussions about that before he died. He understood that. I was the only person on my course that was from an African country. There were two of us from the Chevening Scholarship programme who went to the University of Leeds, and when I got my registration certificate it said, “Namibia/South West Africa”. And I thought it was interesting. I messaged the other guy and I was like, “Did this also happen to you?” and he was like, “Ja.” We were both outraged because it’s like that name no longer stands for what Namibians identify as. Names are important. So we both wrote a letter to the registrar and we just said that it is unacceptable; that’s not what we’re called. We were just talking about surnames – how do you identify? It’s so much a part of your identity.
Because I was the only African student on my course, I became aware that people would turn to me for questions on Africa. And I was very aware that I didn’t want to take on this representation of the whole of Africa, or of Namibia, because I know that my socio-economic class, my racial identity, it’s of a minority. My experience of Namibia is very different to that of the majority, and I’m very aware of that and I think it’s important to take a step back and also say, “Look, I don’t have the experience of the average Namibian.” I’ve already done a lot of internal work to frame for myself what it means to be white in this country. And how not to be harmful and white.
It’s interesting as well, I’ve never said I’m from Africa, because I think that in itself is dangerous – to think of the whole continent as one kind of person. But I am a Namibian. I think that as a white person in Namibia it is well within your rights to say you are a Namibian, because that is where you’ve grown up, but with that comes responsibility. You need to understand the complexities of your identity. And not use that as a generalising term to set yourself on the same playing field as someone who hasn’t had the same opportunities as you.
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ART IN SOCIETY
I think that the arts hold a space that’s not like any other.
Artists give something of themselves in their art-making, a vulnerability that happens when you open yourself up for that sharing. And I think that only when you make yourself vulnerable in that kind of way can you really connect at a level that is meaningful and not superficial. So even if it’s just one person who looks at a piece in an exhibition and somehow is moved or it reminds them of something that then triggers a movement in them or a shift in them – that exchange is something that doesn’t happen in many other places other than arts spaces. Artists set up artworks in the way that they think it’s most likely to be read, but most artists will understand and know and also play on the idea that you look with your own gaze and your life experience, seeing all of the things you’ve seen up until the point that you look at the artwork. That all feeds into how you read the artwork, and artists know that’s going to happen. I think most artists appreciate that.
If we all had the same idea, there wouldn’t be discussion, talking, connection, you know?
