'A Machine Dreams of African Print' with Jim Chuchu

Jim Chuchu, artist, filmmaker, co-founder of The Nest Collective (Nairobi) and our guest in Our House, your Home 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 is on view in Stroom's window display.

With Our House, your Home, Stroom hosts international organisations that are invited to realise a project they consider most urgent and relevant. This month we present Material Languages by The Nest Collective, a multidisciplinary group from Nairobi, with whom we have been collaborating over the past year through an online hybrid co-learning experience. Through Material Languages, The Nest Collective investigates textiles as a medium to address troubling questions relating the Kenyan past, present and future. Three members of the Collective, Jim Chuchu, Sunny Dolat and Njoki Ngumi unpack notions of belonging, identity, spirituality and design, sharing the processes in a series of online talks.

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