Nicola Brandt was born in Windhoek, Namibia and is of German and South African descent. Currently based between Berlin, Windhoek and Cape Town, she is a multidisciplinary artist known for her large-scale photographs, video works, and installations that reflect on themes of power, memory, desire, and positionality.

Part of an emerging generation of artists in the country of her birth, Brandt became known for her new, critical approach to place and landscape and her decolonial examination of German colonial history and memorial work. Her work foregrounds the idea that place and identity are mutually constituted and are impacted by environmental, social, and political factors. She is interested in how these experiences and effects might be communicated through expanded documentary and performance practices.

Enacting the idea that art can facilitate cross-cultural dialogue and social change, her work featured as part of intergovernmental talks between Namibia and Germany in 2015 and was showcased at the Nama and Herero Congress in Hamburg, Germany in 2018.

Brandt has presented her work internationally, at spaces including the MAXXI Museum in Rome, Yale University, the Würth Museum in Germany, and Nirox Foundation near South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind. She lectures on histories of photography and contemporary art and has been an artist-in-residence at several institutions, including the MARKK Museum and the University of Hamburg.

She is the author of the monograph Landscapes between Then and Now: Recent Histories in Southern African Photography, Video and Performance Art (Bloomsbury, 2020). Brandt has also contributed to publications including The Journey: New Positions in African Photography (Kerber, 2020), co-edited by Simon Njami and Sean O’Toole and the reader of the 13th Edition of the Bamako Biennale (2022). She is the founder and series editor of the artists’ and writers’ residency Conversations Across Place (CAP).

COLLECTIONS (selected)

Würth Collection, Künzelsau, Germany
Iwalewahaus Collection, Bayreuth, Germany
Embassy of Namibia, Berlin, Germany
Eimuth Collection, Münich, Germany
CIP (Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners), Hamburg, Germany
The Joseph Schepers-Germaine Lijnen Fund, Brussels, Belgium
Ministry of Lands and Resettlement, Windhoek, Namibia
National Art Gallery, Windhoek, Namibia
Scheryn Art Collection, Cape Town, South Africa

AWARDS + SCHOLARSHIPS (selected)

2024

Berlin Global Village Decolonial Memorial: top five shortlist

2023

Doek! Literary Awards / Bank Windhoek: shortlist – visual art

2020–2021

Kowitz Foundation Grant to produce ‘Conversations Across Place’

2019

Best Exhibition: The Artists’ Association, Oslo for Hannah Ryggen Triennial: New Land

2017–2018    

Leverhulme Trust (shortlisted), Oxford's Humanities Division & Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford

Diversifying Portraiture, Vice-Chancellor's Diversity Fund, University of Oxford

Gerda Henkel Foundation Fellowship

2016             

IFA (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Wellcome Trust: Participant in Seed Award in Humanities and Social Science

2014

Namibian Film and Theatre Awards: Indifference, Special Mention of the Jury

2010–2014    

Christ Church, University of Oxford, Hugh Pilkington Scholarship

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