Exploring history and identity politics through the lens of those who lived in exile during Namibia’s independence war, Tuli Mekondjo works with layered, textured mixed media (embroidery, collage, paint, resin and mahangu millet grain – a Namibian food staple) and extends this into performance. Drawing on photographic archives and histories of change, loss and submission – particularly when it comes to women – she stitches between past and present. Sensitive botanical vines pay homage to her forebears, fertility and continuity, whilst adorned figures comment on gendered struggle, intergenerational trauma and displacement, bearing a quiet grief and a quest for truth.

Originally mentored by the NJE Collective, since 2018 Mekondjo has shown at exhibitions and fairs in Windhoek, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Paris and London. Her most recent exhibition, The Borders of Memory, took place at Guns & Rain in April 2020.