Judith Westerveld, a visual artist with roots in both South Africa and in the Netherlands, reflects with her work on the omnipresent impact of the Dutch colonization of South Africa. Through diverse audio-visual installations, films, photocollages, and performances, Westerveld questions and unveils who is remembered and acknowledged, and whose stories and perspectives are consequently lost.

With the essay film The Sending of the Crows, a poetic montage of sound and image, she sheds light on the folklore of the South African |xam people. The legend “The Sending of the Crows” that the film is based on was told by |xam narrator Dia!kwain in Cape Town, 1874, a time when Dutch settlers violently took over land where the |xam lived. Three crows are sent out by |xam woman to find their husbands, but return with the news that the colonizer had taken their lives.

In the film, spoken word artist and cultural activist Janine Overmeyer (aka Blaq Pearl) reflects on another variation of the story told by Dia!kwain’s sister, !kweiten ta ||ken, in which the crow tells the stones that have buried the men to part, and the men return home unscathed. Through her spoken word piece, fused with fragments of the |xam language that is now no longer spoken, she gives voice to a past that has been silenced.

The connection between the natural and spiritual world is evoked with visuals, while the words of a silenced past linger in disquiet. This essay film emphasizes the significance of recording oral history to preserve and pass on memories and knowledge of a unique world view. In the essay film tradition, Westerveld invites the spectator to engage in a critical reflection on the presumed authority in colonial narratives from a postcolonial perspective.

The Sending of the Crows is featured in a block dedicated to Judith Westerveld’s work on the colonial legacies of South Africa.