I.105 German Colonial Genocide in Namibia: Shark Island
Date of Incident
1905 - 1908
Location
Lüderitz, ǃNamiǂNûs, ǁKharas region, Namibia
Forums
Exhibition, Human Rights Report, Media
In Partnership With
Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA), Nama Traditional Leaders Association (NTLA)
During their genocidal campaign against the Ovaherero and Nama between 1904 and 1908, German colonial troops established five concentration camps across German Southwest Africa. Shark Island, also known as ‘Death Island’, was the most notorious. FA and Forensis worked with descendants of the camp’s victims and survivors to reconstruct this space of trauma, which today faces new threats of erasure.
I.1 A City Within a Building: The Mariupol Drama Theatre
Date of Incident
24.02 - 16.03.2022
Location
Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre, Mariupol, Ukraine
Forums
Media
An FA-supported project by
The Center for Spatial Technologies (CST), Forensis
Before it was destroyed by a Russian airstrike, the Mariupol Theater was not only a key refuge in the besieged city but a unique site of solidarity and resistance. Working with Forensis and FA, the Center for Spatial Technologies assembled a vast archive of evidence and interviewed survivors of the strike to tell the story of a self-organised commune: a city within a building.
I.91 Fire in Moria Refugee Camp
Date of Incident
08.09.2020
Location
Lesvos, Greece
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition, Media
Commissioned By
Lawyers for the Moria 6
The fire which destroyed the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos was at least the 247th outbreak to have occurred in and around the overcrowded camp since 2013. Six young asylum seekers who came to be known as the 'Moria 6' were accused of arson and jailed. FA and Forensis reconstructed the fire’s spread, casting significant doubt on the basis for those convictions.
I.88 Restituting Evidence: Genocide and Reparations in German Colonial Namibia
Date of Incident
1904 - 1908
Location
Otjozondjupa, Omaheke, and Khomas, Namibia
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
The Ovaherero/Ovambanderu Genocide Foundation (OGF), Forensis
From 1904–1908, Germany committed genocide against the Herero, Mbanderu and Nama peoples in their colony of ‘South-West Africa’ (present-day Namibia). FA/Forensis partnered with genocide activists from descendant communities to begin to produce a body of digital evidence that can be leveraged in support of demands for land restitution and reparations.
Photogrammetry⤵
Photogrammetry is a process by which large numbers of still photographs, of an object or environment, can be combined to create a precise and navigable 3D model. Photogrammetry software computes distances within a 2D image by a process of triangulation, taking into consideration metadata such as the focal length of the lens of the camera that captured the image.
Specific technical software then arranges every pixel from multiple overlapping images in 3D space, creating a ‘point cloud’ made of often hundreds of millions of individual pixels, or ‘points’. This point cloud can be anchored to its location in the real world, through a process known as ‘ground truthing’.