the nest collective's latest work evokes a dystopian wastescape

‘return to sender’: a commentary on fast fashion

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) and the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMΣΤ) unveiled ‘Return to Sender’, a major outdoor installation by Nairobi-based The NEST Collective. Curated by Katerina Gregos and on view until September 30th at SNFCC’s Esplanade, the project includes a custom-built pavilion made of bales of used clothing — ‘mitumba’ in Swahili — most of which typically ends up in landfills in Africa. The textiles and clothes composing this particular installation are collected from Greece and intended for recycling or reuse once the outdoor exhibition concludes.

all images © Nikos Karanikolas / SNFCC

Reflecting on the installation, the organizing team writes: ‘The work alludes to a dystopian waste landscape and highlights a major environmental problem. The installation made of old clothes echoes the true breadth of the uncontrolled consumption in the Global North and the stringent regulations that overtly force the movement of these materials to the Global South to become the business and headache of less industrialized nations to deal with, as both waste and non-waste. An inordinate amount of textile waste comes to Africa—up to 40 percent of each bale of imported second-hand clothes is completely unusable and thus taken straight to landfills—also forcing the folk who trade in them to incur high overheads on the risk of a useless bale.’

custom-built pavilion for ‘Return to Sender’

the nest collective joins forces with EMΣΤ and snfcc

The NEST Collective’s (see more here) installation originally came to fruition as a special commission for the Documenta 15 event that took place in Kassel, Germany, in 2022. Following that launch, the first version of ‘Return to Sender’ landed in Athens after SNFCC encouraged EMΣΤ to submit a proposal for their annual outdoor installation.

As Katerina Gregos, Artistic Director of EMΣΤ, explains, this work was selected to ‘raise awareness of the negative consequences of high-street or fast fashion – clothes bought, worn for a short while, and discarded quickly – and to raise awareness of the issue specifically in Greece. The environmental footprint of the fashion industry is an issue that needs to be talked about more, and consumers need to be made aware that cheap clothes constitute not only an environmental problem, but also a political one as the wealthy West continues to dump its waste in the Global South and poorer countries.‘

using bales of used clothing

A video installation accompanies the built installation and is entitled ‘Return to Sender – Delivery Details. Set up inside the main pavilion, the video explores the complicated situation of mostly second-hand textile waste in Kenya and Africa through the viewpoints of different contributors. This mountain of endless litter, currently plaguing African countries for many years now, is abstractly replicated in SFCC’s Esplanade for the public to discover and investigate freely as the months go by.

a commentary on the endless waste caused by fast fashion

Ultimately, this explorative project ‘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,’ comments Elly Andriopoulou, Managing Director at SNFCC.

for this installation, the clothes are collected in Greece