Events
Nambowa Malua (Nambzee) will be exhibiting here in Lucerne.
How Shared Is the Ground?
The exhibition examines how selected African ceremonial traditions employ movement, music, and touch to cultivate equilibrium, regulate the nervous system, and renew collective harmony.
In his painting and mixed-media works, the artist engages with ritual practices of grounding, connectedness, and embodied experience.
The works approach these ceremonies as living systems of knowledge, shaped by community, environment, and climate. Here, balance is not understood as an individual condition, but as a principle negotiated and shared collectively.
The exhibition invites viewers to consider the notion of “shared ground” as a reflection on collective stability, cultural rootedness, and the significance of communal ritual.
Wie geteilt ist der Boden?
Die Ausstellung untersucht, wie ausgewählte afrikanische Zeremonialtraditionen Bewegung, Musik und Berührung einsetzen, um Gleichgewicht herzustellen, das Nervensystem zu regulieren und kollektive Harmonie zu erneuern.
In seinen malerischen und mixed-media-basierten Arbeiten setzt sich der Künstler mit rituellen Praktiken des Groundings, der Verbundenheit und der verkörperten Erfahrung auseinander.
Die Werke verstehen diese Zeremonien als lebendige Wissenssysteme, die in enger Beziehung zu Gemeinschaft, Umwelt und Klima stehen. Balance erscheint dabei nicht als individueller Zustand, sondern als ein gemeinschaftlich ausgehandeltes und geteiltes Prinzip.
Die Ausstellung lädt dazu ein, die Frage nach dem „geteilten Boden“ als Reflexion über kollektive Stabilität, kulturelle Verankerung und die Bedeutung gemeinsamer Rituale zu lesen.
Artist Statement
Nambowa Malua is a Namibian painter and live performance artist whose work explores the human form as a vessel for memory, ritual, spirit, and transformation. Through faces, bodies, and symbolic imagery, he creates paintings that move between the intimate and the cosmic, the physical and the unseen.
His practice is rooted in his cultural background and shaped by diverse global influences, weaving together elements of ancestral veneration, ceremonial traditions, healing practices, trance, divination, and retro-afrofuturism.
Drawn to the expressive power of gesture, movement, and presence, Malua approaches painting as both a visual and performative act. Whether working in the studio or creating live paintings before an audience, he seeks to capture not only outward appearance, but also the energy and emotion beneath the surface. His works often function as portals into spiritual reflection, exploring identity, mythology, and humanity’s relationship to the cosmos.
Inspired by dance, organic forms, Bantu cosmologies, and Namibian cultural heritage, Malua blends realistic abstraction with esoteric symbolism to create immersive visual experiences. Through his practice, he aims to evoke wonder, introspection, and a deeper connection between the seen and unseen worlds.