Material Languages: The Nest Collective (Nairobi) – Stroom (Den Haag)

A Hybrid Co-learning Experience

Presentation: 11 May - 20 June 2021
Location: Stroom, Hogewal 1-9 (window display) and online
>> material-languages.stroom.nl
>> thisisthenest.com
For the public online evenements:
scroll down

The Nest Collective is a multidisciplinary arts collective living and working in Nairobi, Kenya. They create works in film, music, fashion, visual arts, literature and other media. At Stroom the focus in Material Languages will be on the exploration of textiles as a medium, in a continuum of, and as an extension of, their work in fashion.
Through their work The Nest Collective explore African urban and contemporary experiences, troubling modern identities, including LGBT+ identities, re-imagine the past and reflect on possible futures. Their interventions are designed to engage audiences, thus enabling nuanced discussion and debate of the issues raised, while also advancing aesthetic and artistic value.
Due to the covid pandemic and travel restrictions we are experimenting with the format of a hybrid residency.

Their overall textile project — represented in this particular Our House, your Home iteration by Collective members Sunny Dolat, Dr. Njoki Ngumi & Jim Chuchu — brings together their evolving thoughts about how textiles can help unpack belonging, identity, culture and design.
View the results on the special website:
material-languages.stroom.nl

PUBLIC PROGRAM

Thursday 20 May 2021
19:00 (NL) / 20:00 (KE)
A Machine Dreams of African Print by Jim Chuchu
Online presentation on his process with generative pattern making.
Jim Chuchu shares his investigation on the use of computer-generated textile motifs using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). These tools allowed him to explore the idea of what future Kenyan and African textiles could look like. Results of the experiments have been digitally printed in the Netherlands and are on view in Stroom's window display.
Watch the registration on Youtube

Wednesday 26 May 2021
19:00 (NL) / 20:00 (KE)
What We Left Behind by Njoki Ngumi
Njoki Ngumi presents the process of making her tapestry What We Left Behind (formerly What We Saw), which is being made with quilting techniques exploring energy transfers and translation. She pays homage to, and reflects on (with contributions by the members of The Nest Collective) the use of textile work and fabric processing for memorialisation, archival work, and meditation. She takes us through her process and what it taught her. She will also reveal how it is going.
Watch the registration on Youtube

Wednesday 2 June 2021
19:00 (NL) / 20:00 (KE)
Nanga Nanga: Future Textile Heritages by Sunny Dolat
Online presentation on textile heritages and futures. Nanga is a project exploring textiles as a tether, through which a people are anchored in their cultural heritage. In interrogating Kenya's textile history, Sunny Dolat explores the connection between the country's textile history and the country's identity crisis.
Watch the registration on Youtube

The Nest Collective
Founded in 2012, The Nest Collective has created works like the critically-acclaimed queer anthology film Stories of Our Lives, which has so far screened in over 80 countries and won numerous awards, and Tuko Macho - a groundbreaking interactive crime web series widely considered to be one of the best African TV series. The Nest Collective also founded HEVA Fund - Africa's first creative business fund of its kind - to strengthen the livelihoods of East Africa's creative entrepreneurs.
>> www.thisisthenest.com

Our House, your Home hybrid residency
Stroom invited The Nest Collective to join Our House, your Home in 2020. Due to the pandemic, our guests have not been able to travel to The Hague yet. Therefore we are experimenting with the format of a hybrid residency. We asked ourselves what is an artistic residency? What infrastructure can Stroom offer to its guests? How can we learn together and collaborate over a distance? How to engage our guests with the local creative community of The Hague? These questions are being exercised on a weekly basis.

Three artists from The Nest Collective - Jim Chuchu, Sunny Dolat and Njoki Ngumi - have been working from Nairobi since September 2020, researching textiles as a medium. They share their research process by video calls and email. In these online meetings they also receive guests and meet different staff members of Stroom. They are addressing various facets of the medium: from textile making (weaving/printing techniques), to visual cultures, identity, history and performativity. Through this research, they also search for strategies to tackle issues of decolonization, sustainability and spirituality. Departing from the notion that Kenya does not present a textile tradition of its own (as opposed to West African countries), the artists have delved into finding contemporary approaches that speak to their public, with a focus on the queer community, and aiming to reach the local market with affordable prices.

Stroom has invited The Hague-based artist Ludmila Rodrigues to be the guest project leader.
www.ludmilarodrigues.nl

Acknowledgement
This project is supported by Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, Mondriaan Fund and the City of The Hague.

Our House, your Home
The Nest Collective is the fourth guest in Stroom Den Haag's experimental program Our House, your Home,  for which we invite international organizations to take over our exhibition space, to do the things they find most urgent, fitting, or challenging. Our three earlier guests were: Visual Culture Research Center from Kyiv (Ukraine) and left gallery, online platform based in Berlin (Germany) and Languid Hands from London (United Kingdom).

Analog Eco Festival
And please check out the Analog Eco Festival. Happening now in The Hague (11 - 28 May 2021)
grafischewerkplaats.nl/analog-eco

Window display The Nest Collective at Stroom Den Haag
photo: Jassir Jonis, courtesy Stroom Den Haag
Material Languages
photo: design: Zuzanna Zgierska
Window display The Nest Collective at Stroom Den Haag
photo: Jassir Jonis, courtesy Stroom Den Haag
Book table The Nest Collective at Stroom
photo: Jassir Jonis, courtesy Stroom Den Haag
Window display The Nest Collective at Stroom Den Haag
photo: Jassir Jonis, courtesy Stroom Den Haagn Haag
Window display The Nest Collective at Stroom Den Haag
photo: Jassir Jonis, courtesy Stroom Den Haag
Window display The Nest Collective at Stroom Den Haag
photo: Jassir Jonis, courtesy Stroom Den Haag
‘Athi’ by Jim Chuchu, from ‘A Machine Dreams of African Print’
photo: courtesy The Nest Collective
The Nest Collective
'Not African Enough' (book) by The Nest Collective
screenshot online meeting The Nest + members Stroom team (with guest Nikkie Wester)
screenshot online meeting The Nest + members Stroom team