Imke Rust – How much Namibia can be found in her art?

Last Tuesday was one of those nervously exciting days… I have been invited for an hour-long interview on Deutschlandradio Kultur. The interview forms part of a series called ‘Im Gespräch’  – I would translate it as ‘In Conversation’. Interesting and inspiring people from many different backgrounds are invited to share their thoughts and experiences during these interviews.

Imke Rust busy making the SubRosa Artwork. Photo by Steffen Holzkamp (c)

I felt so honoured and grateful that they have invited me! And at the same time, I realised how big this is, and how much I want to make it count and how scared I am of me messing it up.

Even though I have talked publicly before and believe that I am usually faring quite well, nevertheless I still get nervous as hell. Fortunately the preparations team was super and the interviewer, Britta Bürger, was awesome and I felt safe and welcome.

Once my nervous coughing subsided and we were on-air the time passed so quickly. Before I knew it we were done. It felt as if I woke up from a dream, but have totally forgotten what it was about, except for a faint, very vague memory.

I only arrived home late that evening after a busy day in town. When I switched on my computer, I was overwhelmed to see so many emails of friends and strangers congratulating me and commenting on the interview. I was even more overwhelmed to see that almost 400 people have visited my webpage and clicked through many different pages. Wow – this was an absolute sky-rocketing record for me.

I am so grateful that people have listened to my interview and felt it was interesting enough to find out more on my webpage. Thank you!

For everybody who missed it, if you are curious to hear me talking about my background, Namibia and my art, you can still listen to it on the archive page of Deutschlandradio Kultur, by clicking on the link below. Sorry, once again this is only in German without any translation.

I have had several requests to have my webpage and blog in German. Strangely my German writing is not as fluent, even though it is my mother-tongue. And as much as I wish I could share everything in German too, I just do not have the time to translate it myself or the money to pay for somebody to do it for me. Maybe one day I can change that!

Ok, here is the intro to the interview.

Die Namibierin Imke Rust steckt schwarze Rosen in die Wüste, klebt Regenwolken auf Felsen und lässt Plastik-Goldfische in Eis-Bächen schwimmen. Häufig sind es symbolische Kunstprojekte, mit denen die Künstlerin vor der massiven Umweltzerstörung warnt, die Namibia durch Uran- und Phosphatabbau droht. Sie ist die Nachfahrin einer weißen Missionarsfamilie, die in das damalige Deutsch-Südwestafrika auswanderte.

Click here to read more and listen to the interview.

Klick hier um weiterzulesen und das Interview zu hören.

We are talking more about this artwork during the interview: Coat of Arms by Imke Rust