Title: Basterland
Photographer: Julia Runge
Editors: Cornelia Limpricht, Fabian Sader
Translation: Megan & Rynault van Wyk; Anthony Brendell
Publisher: Julia Runge
Edition: 250 copies
ISBN 9783941602946 / ISBN 978-3-941602-94-6
Softcover, slipcase, 20 x 16 cm, 110 pages, throughout colour photographs, texts in English, German and Afrikaans.
One hundred years after the Rehoboth Basters rose up against their German colonizers, the photo series "Basterland" takes up the task of providing a multifaceted insight into the contemporary life of the ethnic group living in Namibia today. A heterogenous spectrum of images arises in condensed pictures, revealing the tension-laden contradictions inherent to a typical phenomenon of our day and age, the confrontation between the processes of global standardization, and traditional regional structures that have been upheld over generations and defended against such external, antagonistic forces. This portrait of a society that seems to find itself in an "in-between" amid tradition and change. Thus, the very personal questions and emotions that are connected to the photographs are simultaneously expressions of contemporary, fundamental processes: the much-discussed replacement of imperialism by the economic colonization of Africa, but also the reinterpretation of seemingly stable concepts of "origin" or "home", terms that have their own particular relevance in connection to the Baster’s unique history.