The National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMΣΤ) in collaboration with Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) presents ‘Return to Sender,’ a major outdoor installation by the Nairobi-based collective NEST. Curated by Katerina Gregos, the installation will be on exhibit at SNFCC’s Esplanade from April 26th to September 30th, 2023, with free admission for the public.
Founded in 2012, the Nest Collective is a multidisciplinary collective based in Nairobi, Kenya. The Nest Collective creates film, literature, installation, fashion, and visual arts that address critical challenges confronting Kenyan young men and women. Through applied-research-based methodology, they engage their audience and initiate dialogues about African urban, contemporary, as well as post-colonial experiences.
Specially commissioned for Documenta 15 in Kassel (2022), Return to Sender, the NEST Collective’s major installation is on view in Athens until September 30th, 2023.
Image courtesy of The NEST Collective
The installation consists of a custom-built pavilion made of bales of worn clothing – known as mitumba in Swahili – the majority of which ends up in landfills in Africa, posing a major environmental problem. The installation will be on display at SNFCC’s Esplanade and is made of textiles and clothes collected from Greece and intended for recycling or reuse in industry, where they will end up after the exhibition.
SNFCC’s Managing Director Elly Andriopoulou said:
“Through our cooperation with EMST, Return to Sender, this year’s major installation displayed at the public space of SNFCC, brings into focus some of the most critical questions that concern us as an organization. What is the role of a cultural organization in the face of the imperative of sustainability? How do we transform, through contemporary art, the public space into a platform for learning, interaction and dialogue about art itself, society and the alternative perspectives we seek for the future of the planet? Aiming to create such a platform, the installation will be accompanied by a wealth of parallel programming, which will include educational and school activities, workshops for children and adults, as well as guided tours, which will be made possible with the support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).”
Return to Sender, displayed along SNFCC’s Esplanade, features a pavilion created out of mitumba, the name for bales of used clothing in Swahili. However, unlike the bales of dystopian waste landscape in Africa that will remain there indefinitely, Return to Sender, made out of textiles and clothes collected in Greece, will be recycled entirely when the exhibition ends.
Image courtesy of The NEST Collective
The NEST Collective’s installation has a video piece entitled Return to Sender – Delivery Detail. The problem of secondhand waste and the mountains of it that have become a permanent reality in African countries like Kenya and Tanzania is investigated from many contributors’ perspectives.
The ‘Return to Sender’ installation at SNFCC in Athens will be on view until September 30th, 2023.
