The German Section of the University of Namibia and the Institut für Germanistik of the University Duisburg-Essen (UDE) in Germany, launched a joint project within the Germanistische Institutspartnerschaft (GIP) on the visual and textual perception of the City of Windhoek by Namibian and German students.

The project “Städteprojekt – Stadtwahrnehmung in Bild und Text: Das Projekt Essen – Windhoek” aims to compare different perceptions of Windhoek and Essen as images of cities differ based on the cultural and individual backgrounds. For this purpose, seven students from Essen and eight students from Windhoek formed groups and choose their own topic.

The groups spent three days discovering the City of Windhoek from different perspectives by exploring cemeteries, intersections, picnic and food areas, schools, as well as the aspect of vastness. To record their impressions, the students used mainly their cellphones to take photos and subsequently the [thematic] groups had the opportunity to select photos and write texts to connect visual and textual levels of perception. The results of this project were first presented to the participants and were afterwards made accessible to the UNAM public.

To promote the cultural exchange between UNAM and UDE students, a second workshop will possibly take place in Germany next year when the teams will explore the city of Essen according to the selected topics mentioned above.