Julius K Nyerere Street offers an unlikely spot for creative renaissance.
The road is jammed with delivery vehicles, bakkies, and heavy trucks heading to the sprawling array of automotive businesses, building supply shops, and sanitaryware shops that make up the Southern Industrial Area.
Pedestrians are at risk crossing the street. The cabs that cruise down the motorway pick passengers wherever it is convenient. The various warehouse-style buildings in off-white suggest functionality, not creativity.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that creatives aren’t coming.
They arrived with bells at Lazarette Square
After the economic effects from the Covid-19 pandemic shut down a number of local businesses, buildings that once housed an aqua shop and a car battery outfit were transformed into a barber shop, Kissing Casins Tattoo Parlour and an independent art gallery as well as a handcrafted leather goods shop.
On the corner of Julius K Nyerere and Faraday streets, Jaybird & Blade is in the business of cuts, shaves and coffee.
Its dark interior is lit by half-global lamps and hanging bulbs on a Saturday afternoon. Wu-Tang Clan hums in the background.
The aesthetic is alternative. The barbers are a friendly group of tattooed and pierced people who offer an hour cut as well as a welcome drink.
Owner Ollie Reissner says the drink, the collector and vintage vibe as well as the music calibration are all to set clients at ease because Jaybird & Blade, which moved into the area from a smaller situation in Klein Windhoek in May, is more than just a barber shop.
“The idea when I opened this place was to create a space of networking, community and of trust that had all the traditional aspects of barbering,” says Reissner.
“Everybody gets an hour cut. Everyone gets enough time to relax, and enough time for barbers to do their job properly. That’s why you get a beer and Jägermeister is on board,” Reissner says.
“Obviously, the longer you come, you go from client to patron to friend and that’s what we’ve seen here.”
The new Jaybird & Blade is around the corner from the new The Project Room, which is still dealing with some minor issues of a change in location.
“We still get people looking for Taurus Batteries so we direct them to where it was,” says owner Frieda Lühl.
In July 2018, the Project Room moved to Julius K Nyerere Street from Jenner Street in Windhoek West.
“I like that southern industrial is so central, that totally enhanced the clientele of The Project Room. So many young people come and say this is wonderful, it’s so accessible,” says Lühl.
“We’re down the street from the older creative hub, which is Grüner Kranz. There was also the Namibian Arts Association. There was also the Namibia Book Market and StArt Art Gallery. There is also the Wolfshack, which hosts karaoke nights and provides platforms for musicians. So there’s a lot of creativity going on around here.”
Lühl made the move to lean into the need for some expansion and to separate her personal space from her professional one.
“The rent is good too. For a gallery, you always use a lot of square metres and selling art is not so easy,” says Lühl, whose space accommodates a crop of exciting new and veteran artists while also hosting LGBTQIA+ film screenings, creative workshops and artist-led walkabouts.
“Because it was meant to be a coffee roastery, it came painted black and we’re kind of into it. It’s sort of our signature now and we really like how it works with so many exhibitions.”
Continue on to Leon Engelbrecht Design (LED), which is a yellow brick road that leads to the Leon Engelbrecht Design showroom, store, and manufacturing facility.
LED moved their operations from Maerua Mall’s shop to Lazarette Square at Julius K Nyerere Street, January.
“First and foremost what this space offers me is the possibility to grow the manufacturing side,” says Engelbrecht over the bang of rivets being hammered onto a tote bag.
“People can really get an instant appreciation for what they’re buying,” says Engelbrecht, whose sought-after bags, bowties and fine leather pieces are showcased astride his newest venture into textiles.
“I feel that my creativity can blossom here. I am already taking on bigger projects that I couldn’t in the mall and I’m also attracting different people that we can collab with,” he says.
“What really sold me on this area and this building is these double volume windows. You don’t get this in Windhoek, firstly, and the feeling of space I got when I walked in made me realise that this could be something very cool.”
Cool.
Maybe that’s the right word.
It is becoming cooler as a new crop of millennials and entrepreneurs move to the Southern Industrial Area. And not only at Lazarette Square, but also on Bell Street, where Bellhaus Atelier & Galerie and The Forge are the creative new neighbours.
The Bellhaus, a small, independent gallery that opened in March, takes its name from its location at Bell Street. Bellhaus is a site that hosts art supper clubs and drawing sessions, as well as sophisticated vernissages. It was founded by Marcii Magnson and Andrea Behnsen.
“Since we opened Bellhaus, people of all walks of life have been coming back to the Grüner Kranz to see how it has developed and where it is going,” says Behnsen.
“We think it’s fantastic because the creatives are coming together to work for a greater goal and that is turning the city centre back into a creative hub. More creative outlets and food stalls are in the pipeline to attract even more people,” she says.
“We hope to add value to the bigger picture of turning Windhoek back into the creative powerhouse that it used to be when we grew up. So watch this space.”
Space is an idea that recurs throughout the stories of all these entrepreneurs.
Space to grow, to make and to build community.
Up the road from Bellhaus at The Forge, a utilitarian gym founded by author Rémy Ngamije and his writer brother Ange Mucyo, space is the beginning of everything.
“We’re breathing new life into old spaces,” says Ngamije, who transformed an old paint factory into the kind of no-nonsense gym that has a quote by Seneca painted over its entrance: “There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.”
“Our goal at The Forge is to make and remake yourself time and time again through fitness and the fact that we could do this with the building as well maybe holds a little promise for the larger urban environment in Windhoek,” Ngamije says.
“We need to allow young people to reconceptualise space, to hear them out, hear their plans and allow them the space to express themselves.”
It is to believe it is to hear Ngamije say it.
As the Southern Industrial Area continues its open doors to creatives, one can only imagine how spirited new businesses will call a large warehouse or empty supplier store home.
– [email protected]; Martha Mukaiwa (Twitter and Instagram); marthamukaiwa.com
Source: namibian
