b. 1987, Katatura, Namibia; lives in Katatura/ Cape Town.
Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja is a performer, educator and writer with practice-research interests in performance, archives and public culture. His research on Oudano — an African concept of performance — looks at its mobilisations of queer praxis, sonic and movement formation, as well as critical pedagogies and spatialities.
Bio
Mushaandja’s work has been performed widely at festivals, museums, theatres and archives in Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Cameroon and Namibia. Previous records of Mushaandja’s performance work as Tschuku Tschuku include Black Bantu Child (2012) and Trance !Namib Freedom Station (2017). The latest Tschuku record Ondaanisa yo pOmudhime was released in September 2021 and is available on all online platforms and on CD. Mushaandja’s latest performance project is ZILIN: for the first and future African sonic stars was premiered in 2021 at the National Arts Festival (Makhanda, South Africa) and Zürcher Theater Spektakel (Zurich, Switzerland) where it was awarded the ZKB Public Choice Award.
Education
Thesis: "Oudano Praxis: Movement, Audiotopia & Archive"
2015: Master of Arts, Applied Theatre: (Social, Educational and Community Contexts), University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Thesis: "The performer as shaman: an auto ethnographic performance as research project"
2013: Master of Arts, Performing Arts, University of Namibia, Windhoek.
Thesis: "Organizational Theatre as Applied Theatre in the Namibian context: A case study"
2010 Bachelor of Arts, Media Studies and Performing Arts, University of Namibia, Windhoek.
Performances (Namibia & International)
2020: Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Zurich, Switzerland.
2019: The Burden of Memory, Yaoundé, Cameroon; Spielart, Munich, Germany; Infecting the City Public Art Festival, Cape Town, South Africa; Basler Afrika Bibliographien and Atelier Mondial, Basel, Switzerland; Owela Festival, National Theatre of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia; Ruhrfestspiele, Recklinghausen & TAK Theatre, Berlin, Germany; Impossible Bodies Festival, Kunstlerhaus Musountrum, Frankfurt, Germany.
2018: Museum am Rothenbaum, Kulturen und Künste der Welt & M. Bassy, Hamburg, Germany.
Other Performances
2018: Site-specific performance, Live Museum of Afrotekismo and the Future Africa Visions in Time (FAVT), Old Location Cemetery, Windhoek.
2017: CIS/SIES Dolly Potgieter and Other National Trashisms, Kalahari International Art Festival, Windhoek & StartArt Gallery, Windhoek.
2016: The State of Citizenshi.ph.t (with Oupa Sibeko), part of "Conversations", National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek.
2014 - 2015: Eenganga: Translations and Trace formation, MA Performance as research (autoethnography) project, University of Witwatersrand, Johanesburg.
2014: Performance, Camel Stables, Windhoek.
2014: The Journey of Connection: Reflecting on the paths and patterns of human connection, Participatory Design Conference, Windhoek.
2014: Aluta’s Children: Re-visiting the footsteps of the Namibian struggle child through the lenses of disorder and inequality,, Independent Theatre solo performance, Theatre School, Windhoek.
Exhibitions
Residencies
Awards
Conference Presentations
2014: "The Journey of Human Connection: Reflecting on the paths and patterns of human connection," 13th Participatory Design Conference: Reflecting Connectedness, Windhoek.
Academic Publications
2021: [with Gunkel, H] “Orientation Towards the Here and Now: Care and Presence in the work of Frieda Orupabo and Nkikura Oparah,” in HERE & NOW at Museum Ludwig: Dynamic Spaces, edited by Romina Dümler (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz Konig, 2021).
2021: “'Making Love:' Solidarity in Decolonial Times, in Changes in Direction, edited by Laura Horelli and Heidi Brunnschweiler (Berlin: Archive Books, 2021).
2020:“Ons Dala die Ding by Odalate Naiteke. The curative, performance and publicness in Katutura,” Journal of Namibian Studies: History Politics Culture 28 (December 2020): 65-89.
2020: with LaFleur, I, Fink, K; and Siegert, N., “A Conversation around Trauma, Healing and Things Not To Touch,” in Ghosts, spectres, revenants: Hauntology as a means to think and feel future, edited by Katharina Fink, Marie-Anne Kohl and Nadine Siegert (Bayreuth: Iwalewa Books, 2020).
2020: “Black Boxes and White Cubes as Concentration Camps: Concerning Institutional Violence and Intergenerational Trauma,” in Echoes of a Place, edited by Jorge Munguía (Mexico City: Buró—Buró, 2020), 149-163.
2019: with researchers from Namibia, Cameroon, Togo, Tanzania, Burundi and Germany, “Documenting and Representing Legacies of Violence: (De)Coloniality?”, in German Colonial Heritage in Africa: Artistic and Cultural Perspectives (Goethe Sub-Saharan Africa, 2019).
2018: “When Applied Theatre is no Rehearsal for the Revolution,” in Writing Namibia: Literature in Transition, edited by Sarala Krishnamurthy and Helen Vale (Windhoek: Unam Press, 2018).
Essays, Reviews & Zines
2021: “Pleasure and Consent in Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Towards a Feminist Curriculum for Health Workers,” Sister Namibia, July 2021.
2020: “Thinking Love, Thinking African Queer Masculinities,” Sister Namibia, November 2020.
2020: “FIRE,” In Handle with Care [zine], (Iwalewa Books, 2020).
2019: with Koni Benson and Asher Gamedze, "Radical Histories II: Ottilie Abrahams Speaks," and "Mapping the Life Journey and Movements of Ottilie Abrahams: Revolutionary, Teacher, Feminist," In Owela: The Future of Work, edited by Kaleni Kollective, (Kaleni Kollectiv, 2019), 40-49.
2019: Owela: The Future of Work (Kaleni Kollectiv, 2019).
2018: "What Feminism Means to Me," Monochrome Magazine, March 30, 2018.
Cultural and Research leadership
2020 - 2021: Steering Committee Member, Museum Futures Africa. [a Pan-African project established to support the conceptual development of museums throughout the African continent.]
2020 - 2021: National Expert, UNESCO/EU Intellectual Property and Local Content (IPLC Namibia) Initiative. [European Union and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in collaboration with the Directorate of Arts, Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture. This initiative has objectives of designing a measure to support local content production and revising a copyright legislation taking into account the digital environment.] 2018 and 2020: Curator, Operation Odalate Naiteke. [organising and curating radical learning and culture through performance, public art and trans-historic work in Katutura and Windhoek city at large.] 2015 - 2018: Project Manager, John Muafangejo Art Centre. [Curating exhibitions, organising residencies, workshops and studio programmes, cultural leadership and research. JMAC is a creative think tank focused on establishing collaborative methodologies in contemporary arts practice and forging expansive networks. Its vision is to promote and provide innovative and practical visual arts programs in Namibia to enable artists to grow to their full potential and prepare them for self-empowerment. Notable projects included curating a week-long John Muafangejo Season: Arts, Archivism & Activism (2016) and Katutura Ketu (2017) - a SADC collaborative project of critical creative engagement with artists and curators from Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.] 2011 - 2016: Writer/Columnist, The Weekender's “The Chanting Warrior column,” The Namibian. [socio-political and cultural commentary in the Namibian context] 2011 - 2012: Research Assistant, Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP), University of Namibia, Windhoek. [Project was aimed at promoting open access paradigms as a means of making the scholarship of Sub-Saharan researchers more visible and was largely focused on the exploration of new affordable business models for open online scholarly publishing as well as the establishment of infrastructure such as repositories to promote open content sharing.]
Press & Interviews
Martha Mukaiwa, "Mushaandja's Rubber Tree Hits Zurich," The Namibian, 23 August, 2020.
"Jacques Mushaandja on Violent Art Institutions: Breaking Heteropatriarchy and Decoloniality," NamibInsider, 27 June, 2018.
"Life Goes On: Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja," Start Art Gallery, April 3, 2020.
Greer Valley, "Decolonization can't just be a Metaphor," Africasacountry, November 12, 2019.
Links
Watch Tshuku Tshuku's NANDJILA Video
Watch Tshuku Tshuku's Odalate Naiteke Video, featuring Jackson Wahengo
Watch Tshuku Tshuku's Ongovela Video, featuring Diolini
