Law and the Land - Gallery open

A photographic exploration of justice, place, ancestors and spirit in  Namibia

Luke Kaplan's powerful exhibition explores the spiritual, cultural, and legal relationships between a San community in Namibia and the land in which they live. The photographic work emerged through a collaborative research project with the Ju/’hoan people of N//homa village, which sought new ways of representing the law: not merely as a codified set of texts, but by portraying the land claims of this community, and others like it, in a manner which does justice to an embodied and spiritual sense of living law. The San of Southern Africa (sometimes called Bushmen) are a widely dispersed and diverse group of people, who despite language and geographical differences share deep cultural commonalities and historical experiences: they were hunter-gatherers with a particular relationship with the land in which they lived, and were the first inhabitants of most of the region. They also experienced fierce hostility and prejudice by most who came into contact with them, which often continues to this day. Those who survived the drawn-out genocide lost most of their ancestral land through the period of colonialism, and still struggle for redress.

The stories of this community are told through a number of interweaving photographic series. In a collaborative portraiture series, women’s stories of birth rituals and generational connection to place are surfaced. In these portraits, women present themselves in places of deep significance: the places, and trees, where they gave birth. These are the physical sites of their rites of passage, representing the living and emerging nature of ‘sacred place’ – sites made and consecrated within each persons’ lifetime, and connecting generations in both directions.

Alongside these images are portraits of others within the community – elders, leaders, healers, and young people. Also included are images of the healing dances held by the community to evoke the ancestors and the spiritual power – “N!om” – which is accessed by the healers, and which underpins and sustains the world. These images work in conjunction with audio of the songs and percussive beat of clapping of the dancers, to immerse the viewer in the world of the Ju/’hoan. In this way, living law is being woven within and between people and place in the here and now, connecting past, present and future.

Luke Kaplan's photographs were produced as part of a wider research project undertaken by !Xun youth activist Kileni Fernando and legal anthropologist Dr Saskia Vermeylen. The exhibition has been curated by Luke Kaplan and Saskia Vermeylen

Project supported by UKRI/ESRC, Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures (Bristol University), Environmental Learning Research Centre (Rhodes University), the Namibian San Council, and the National Arts Council

Assembly Arts Gallery

Assembly Arts are developing a programme of curated exhibitions in their ground floor gallery on King Street, Lancaster. Enquiries are welcome from artists and organisations wishing to exhibit in any medium in the space dedicated to contemporary modern art.