Baakenhafen: The Logistics of Empire
Celina Abba
Translator: Marcel Krueger
Baakenhafen Research: Jan Kawlath Support: Liz Rech, Anne Mager
Location: Hamburg, DE
Programme website for (NOT A) COMMON GROUND / IF THE BONES COULD SPEAK
Celina Abba
Translator: Marcel Krueger
Baakenhafen Research: Jan Kawlath Support: Liz Rech, Anne Mager
Location: Hamburg, DE
Programme website for (NOT A) COMMON GROUND / IF THE BONES COULD SPEAK
This video installation investigates Hamburg’s Baakenhafen and the former
Woermann Line headquarters, tracing how one of Germany’s largest colonial
shipping companies became deeply entangled with the German colonial
administration during the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama (1904–1908) in
present-day Namibia. Through archival research and spatial reconstruction, the
project reveals how the port functioned as a critical logistical hub, facilitating the
transport of military personnel, supplies, and more than 19,000 German soldiers
deployed to the colony during the war of extermination.
Today, the former harbor has been comprehensively redeveloped, with its colonial
history largely erased from public view. Streets, housing, and commercial
developments now occupy the site, yet there is little acknowledgment of the role it
played in enabling colonial violence.
Woermann Line headquarters, tracing how one of Germany’s largest colonial
shipping companies became deeply entangled with the German colonial
administration during the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama (1904–1908) in
present-day Namibia. Through archival research and spatial reconstruction, the
project reveals how the port functioned as a critical logistical hub, facilitating the
transport of military personnel, supplies, and more than 19,000 German soldiers
deployed to the colony during the war of extermination.
Today, the former harbor has been comprehensively redeveloped, with its colonial
history largely erased from public view. Streets, housing, and commercial
developments now occupy the site, yet there is little acknowledgment of the role it
played in enabling colonial violence.
Presented as part of Counter Monuments in Hamburg (Summer 2026), the installation confronts this absence by reconnecting the contemporary landscape to its colonialpast. It calls for public recognition of Hamburg’s role in the genocide and argues that sites of colonial infrastructure should be understood as enduring landscapes of historical responsibility rather than spaces whose histories have been paved over.
Photography, Spore Initiative © Marvin Systermans & Esra Gültekin