Displaced as a child from her native Namibia, Windhoek-based artist Tuli Mekondjo considers her country’s past in textile and photo-based work now on view at Hales Gallery in Chelsea. This piece’s title, ‘Khaxatsus (Gibeon), 1863,’ refers to the original and the colonial names for the hometown of IKhowesin chief Hendrik Witbooi, who is recognized for his military action against German colonizers in the late 19th – early 20thcentury. Posing in a photograph with his family and surrounded in a frame of lace at the center of this textile piece, Witbooi is pictured as family man as much as national hero. (On view through March 9th).
