Navigating legacies of contract labour / Namibia

Compounded : Navigating legacies of contract labour emerges as a research project from the pressing presence of two albums left to me by my father, JF Morris. The first is a record of architectural works compiled by him between 1958 and 1960 when he was working in Walvis Bay, Namibia, as one of the architects of the Municipal Compound designed to house 6000 men from the north – contracted through the colonial system of fixed-term labour contracts – to work in the fisheries. The second is an album of my grandfather, RF Morris, compiled during the years that he was Native Commissioner of the Kavango, north-east Namibia, between 1946 and 1953. As Native Commissioner he was tasked with facilitating recruitment of men for the contract labour system.

Navigating legacies of contract labour is shaping into a collaborative project of conversations, performances, experimental writings, publications and exhibitions through which researchers, artists and performers with intergenerational connection to this period of colonial contract-work trace legacies and aftermaths still resonating in contemporary Namibia.

In November 2025 Fieldguides for a Preternaturalist vol. 4 will be published featuring new experimental writing by writer, performer and artistic researcher Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja. Provisionally entitled Otherwise, this work will explore contemporary traces of the contract labour system on descendants of men and women who navigated that system.

Research made possible by travel grants from FWO (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Flanders, Belgium, February 2025) and LUCA School of Arts (March-April 2025). Part-funding for Fieldguide vol 4 by the research cluster Deep Histories Fragile Memories / Art & Society, LUCA, 2024.