Return to Sender

Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre and the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, presents the major outdoor installation "Return to Sender" by the Nairobi based collective NEST, curated by Katerina Gregos until Saturday 30 September 2023, at SNFCC’s Esplanade.

The installation will be on display at SNFCC’s Esplanade. In Athens, the NEST Collective are presenting their major installation Return to Sender specially commissioned for Documenta 15 in Kassel (2022). The installation’s first version after Documenta 15 will be exhibited at the SNFCC. The work consists of a custom-built pavilion made of bales of used clothing - called mitumba in Swahili - the majority of which ends up in landfills in Africa, constituting a major environmental problem. The installation 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. A number of educational and creative activities for all ages will accompany the project throughout its stay at the SNFCC. Return To Sender alludes to a dystopian waste landscape. 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. Return To Sender is also accompanied by a video installation, entitled Return to Sender - Delivery Details that explores the complicated situation of mostly second-hand textile waste in Kenya and Africa, through the viewpoints of different contributors. EMST realizes the presentation of the NEST installation and the collaboration with SNFCC in the framework of the EMST Extra Muros programme.

Τhe interior space of the installation is open to the public during the following time slots:

27/04-31/05
Monday to Friday 11.30-21.00 and Weekends 10.00-21.00

01/06-19/09
Daily 10.00-21.00

20-30/09
Monday to Friday 11.30-21.00 and Weekends 10.00-21.00