This project was born from a striking moment in Opuwo, northwestern Namibia: a Himba woman, her skin covered in ochre and adorned with traditional ornaments, walking through a supermarket holding a tray of butter. I later understood that many women now choose ready-made products instead of preparing the ancestral mixture of goat’s milk and red earth to protect and beautify their bodies.
That scene, tradition colliding with modernity, was a visual shock. It revealed the fragile balance of this region, where social and cultural systems stand on the edge of profound transformation. It awakened in me the urgency to document this meeting of two worlds with radically different rhythms and values.
Opuwo, which means “that’s enough!” in the local language, is a crossroads where Himba, Herero, and migrants from Angola, Zambia, and Botswana coexist. It is both harmonious and turbulent, shaped by desertification, pollution, and the forces of globalization. Nature and modernity, tradition and evolution, migration and rapid change all converge here.
The Himbas, semi-nomadic, are marked by red skin and traditional adornments, while the Hereros, influenced by colonial history, wear long dresses and horn-shaped headdresses. Despite these differences, both live in fragile harmony, echoing the principle of Ubuntu: I am because we are. Yet this coexistence is increasingly strained by modern pressures and climate challenges.
On my last trip, I met Dr. Ivan Kroupin, a researcher with the London School of Economics and Harvard. His work explores how tribal societies adapt socially and cognitively to globalization. He sees Opuwo as a living laboratory of transformation and predicts that tribal traditions may vanish within seventy years.
Together, his scientific analysis and my photographs form a dialogue. My images focus on everyday scenes, capturing resilience, adaptation, and the tension between ancient ways and modern life.
Our goal is to create the first book combining art and research, offering both testimony and tools for Namibia to preserve its cultures while facing urgent social and environmental challenges.
