Nina Mhach Durban & Athen Kardashian

Athen Kardashian & Nina Mhach Durban’s collaborative practice has been formed by an ongoing dialogue concerning their joint experience of being raised in London to Indian mothers. Noticeboards reminiscent of school and work become sculptures as the duo curate their collection of found images and trinkets, positioned at the hand of conversations regarding family, displacement, and migration. In utilising glamorous Bollywood headshots and diasporic, domestic objects they reference matriarchal upbringings, diasporic femininity, and the nostalgia inherent to reflection upon 'teenagehood’ and childhood.

The series of work shown at studio/chapple utilises an overwhelming sense of nostalgia paired with diasporic aesthetics to create an archive that colonialism has failed to acknowledge. Functioning as a method of conversation, between the artists and other migrant peoples within Britain, the works propose the question, what is ‘sacred’? Drawing heavily from their Nani’s Poojas and the 'shrines' the artists would create to pop stars as children, the work uses frameworks of iconography and worship within both a British, and British-Asian migrant context.

Alongside their debut presentation of works as a duo at studio/chapple in 'The Ultimate Bootleg Experience', recent exhibitions include Athen & Nina: Sleepover, at Gathering, London.