A week after the opening of their solo exhibition So She Was Turned To a Pillar of Salt at The Project Room in Windhoek, Jo Rogge also facilitated a workshop for aspiring female artists at the gallery. Squeezing in a workshop in the few days they were in Namibia is an affirmation of their commitment to the advancement of art in the country. This is despite having been forced out of Namibia in 2016 when, after 30 years of living and working there, Rogge's work permit was not renewed. They relocated to neighbouring South Africa.
Rogge is a cultural worker who wears many hats - artist, curator, activist, educator and mentor. They have founded some of the nation's most thriving art institutions.
For the new show, Rogge tackles burning issues by employing diverse media and forms including paintings, drawings, sculptures from found materials and text-based textiles. In one colourful, confrontational painting called The Lady Chatelaine was Always Going to be a Prince, Rogge addresses the reality of homophobic hate killings in Namibia. This is done by humanising the mutilated figure of Sexy Fredericks lying on a bed of roses. The transgender woman was murdered earlier this year.
The artist's doilies series has a piece titled Filastin expressing their solidarity with Palestinians in the country's conflict with Israel. Others engage the issues with a dash of humour (Red Hot Resibian takes a dig at Namibia's founding president's pronunciation of the word "lesbian".)
Read more: Being queer in Africa: the state of LGBTIQ+ rights across the continent
I've encountered Jo Rogge's legacy over and over again in my studies on artists and artistic practices across the region. The core of my research is about salvaging the stories of sidelined artists, often only recognised after their deaths.
Rogge works to make marginalised people visible. A big part of that work is to mentor artists and cultural workers, who are often underfunded and whose voices are not heard.
Working for the marginalised
Rogge's practice riffs on themes like belonging, alienation and exclusion. At the time of their 2021 exhibition Normal NOT Normal, the artist said
For me, being queer, being non-binary, I am considered not normal by many.
The show grappled with issues of identity in Namibia, a country whose courts only recently overturned colonial era sodomy laws. As in many other African countries, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) community often faces homophobia and exclusion.
In Rogge's 2018 exhibition Always in a Holding Pattern, the artist presented paintings in which "ships, boats and life rafts" were a recurring theme - the show explored migration. The artist's own father migrated from Europe and settled in Namibia. Rogge discovered that the village he came from in then East Prussia no longer existed.
As the curator for the Unmourned Bodies exhibition in South Africa in 2023, Rogge invited 18 Namibian artists to choose an artwork that resonated with them from the collection of the Namibian Art Association and Namibian Arts Heritage Trust. Rogge included "works by artists of Ju/'hoansi origins - a population of Khoisan-speaking hunter-gatherers residing in north-eastern Namibia and the north-western region of Botswana. This was to make visible the "absences and erasures of San artistic contributions to the art historical canon".
Consistently on the side of the marginalised and vulnerable, Rogge has often grappled with queer invisibility, hate killings, women's rights and similar issues. The artist has always held the view that human beings are different and so the best way to attain harmony in the world would be to embrace these differences and try to find common ground.
Institution builder
With very little or no government support in most African countries, artists often organise themselves. They build institutions and sustain them. Over the years, Rogge has initiated several institutions and projects that have been central to the development of Namibia's art world. Many are still thriving today. Among them was the John Muafangejo Art Centre, which accommodated and mentored artists who had no access to university education and funding.
Rogge co-founded the Tulipamwe International Artists Workshop which ran from 1994 to 2003 as part of the broader Triangle Network initiative. This gave Namibian artists the opportunity to learn from and exchange ideas with artists from the region and beyond.
The So Namibia Collective was co-founded by Rogge in 2016 to counter the marginalisation experienced by many women artists in Namibia by government-run art institutions.
As early as 1989, at the dawn of Namibia's independence, Rogge co-founded Sister Namibia, advocating for women candidates in the nation's first administration. The publication remains committed to the plight of women and the LGBTIQ+ community.
Read more: John Hlatywayo: remembering a great Zimbabwean artist who was woefully neglected by history
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Rogge also served as a lecturer of art and graphic design in Namibia and in various capacities at the National Art Gallery of Namibia and the Namibian Arts Association.
The future of Namibian art
Rogge's vision - which must be celebrated in their lifetime - has been to give voice to silenced communities and to unlock the potential of emerging artists.
Rogge believes that there is a gap in the region - talented young artists are organising themselves because they don't have the necessary support structures. If all sectors of society, including the state, were to join their efforts, they believe that Namibian art will flourish in future.
Highlighting Rogge reminds us that there are unsung artists engaging key contemporary issues and subjects we cannot just afford to ignore if we are to build inclusive and progressive societies in southern Africa.
So She Was Turned to a Pillar of Salt is on in Windhoek until 12 October.
Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti, Nancy and Robert J. Carney Postdoctoral Associate in Art History, Rice University
