One hundred and fifty bundles of unused used clothes make up an open-air art installation. “Return to sender” (Return to sender), which is posted on his Esplanade. SNFCC. Each of them weighs about 270 kilograms, and the whole structure – a square building with a tin roof, reminiscent of a house in an African slum – has a total weight of about 40 tons.

If numbers are of fundamental importance in a work of fiction, it is because they quickly, simply and lucidly show how unbearable the burden that is placed on the shoulders of the Third World by what we easily call fast fashion, i.e. rampant consumption of the Global North.

Kenyan Sammy Dolat, co-founder of the African art collective NEST, came to Athens to approve the installation “Return to Sender”, a work created especially for Documenta 15 (2022). The esplanade represents its first version after Kassel, and it came about thanks to the SNFCC’s collaboration with the National Museum of Modern Art (EMST). This unique “house” took about 3 months to build and the clothes were meant to be recycled or reused in industry, which is where it will end up after the show ends.

In a press tour that took place the day before the opening, Dolat speaks to us not as an artist, but as a Nairobi resident who feels the need to communicate and explain a major environmental issue unknown in Europe. In addition, he and other members of the team do not consider themselves artists par excellence. “Art gives us the freedom to speak about the reality we experience, using play and imagination to be heard,” he told us.

These bundles, which are called mitumba in Swahili, come to Africa from the rich countries of the West, of course, after the first sorting has been carried out in order to preserve the products of the highest quality. Thus, at the same time that our Western conscience is being assuaged by sending such packages as humanitarian aid to Kenya, Ghana and Rwanda in the first place, the countries themselves are choking on the accumulation of useless items. An unimaginable amount of old clothes are arriving in Africa, with up to 40% of each package going straight to landfill.

The “return to sender”, widely discussed in The Document, takes us into a dystopian landscape of waste. An installation with tons of old clothes shows the true extent of the problem, while shedding light on the strict laws that explicitly mandate the transportation and disposal of textile waste in the Global South. It also includes a video that plays inside the installation and explores the difficult situation of second-hand clothing and textiles in Africa. The video will be supplemented with materials about our country with the participation of Greek activists. Cooperation between the NEST team and EMST, as we know, will continue in the near future.

Duration until September 30, 2023, with free access to the public.