Living Museum Workshop 2023

The Living Culture Foundation Namibia is organizing a traditional workshop and music festival for all Living Museums from Monday, October 30, 2023 to Friday, November 3, 2023. The workshop will take place at the Mbunza Living Museum, approximately 15 km west of Rundu.

Activities of the workshop include woodworking, blacksmithing, pottery, tool making, ostrich egg processing, making fire in various ways, leather making, trapping techniques, weaving mats and baskets. Specialists will arrive from each Living Museum to demonstrate the workshop activities.

The aim of the workshop is to specifically improve traditional craft techniques that were used in the respective traditional cultures. For example, master blacksmiths from Angola are invited to teach the actors in the living museums blacksmithing techniques, which are intended to help improve the representation of blacksmithing in the respective museums. The different techniques of the different cultural groups should be compared, but not randomly adapted for each museum. An important point of the workshop is for participants to recognize which traditional skills correspond to the original culture of the specific language groups.

The focus here is not only on improving the quality of craftsmanship, but also on rediscovering lost traditional techniques in some museums that can be proven to have been part of the original culture. Tools for these various crafts will be produced within the workshop, which can then be used at home in the Living Museums.

The workshop will also contribute to intercultural exchange. It will be the first time that members from all seven Living Museums will come together. Here the actors can exchange ideas not only about the presentation of traditional activities, but also about general questions about the management of the living museums.

At the end of each day there should be a small musical exchange.