Athen Kardashian & Nina Mhach Durban | Much love I leave behind

30 January - 1 March 2025

Here lies what remains, birth (unknown) - death (unknown). Sister, Mother, Lover, Father and Friend.

Beneath the cracks of our work, there lies a processing of things past; stories lost, times forgotten and people passed. The journeys of objects and tales across hands and borders has led us on a trail to this point in time. Situated in the limbo of silence before breath. An examination of the remains of the day, how colours change and how music feels to the touch. Recycling and reusing, the cycle of breaking/fixing/breaking/fixing, at what point do we leave it behind?At what point does night fall?Everything we’ve touched so far is here, you’ve heard this all before. But, something’s different... you can’t quite put your finger on it... Perhaps it’s the tone? Are the subtitles out of sync? Or maybe the words have lost all meaning due to the incessant repetition? ... What language are we speaking in again?In our sleep we mutter hymns. The smell of you lingers in the air outside the station, but we can’t quite place which head it came from. Growing up, we heard ghost stories, but at home we lay on the floor, there’s no space for monsters or boogey-men under the bed. Instead, we feel your presence in this air outside the station. The braiding of hair, a photo encased in a wallet, the sensation of breath whispering a secret, the clasp of a necklace and the hands putting it on you. We feel your haunt in the peeling leather of a wrist watch and the lathering of Imperial Leather soap.

Who owns these things? This treasure trove of washed-out stars, whose posters curl at the edges? We think we got it from the woman who sells DVDs on a blanket outside Old Street Station—it was Friday after all, but it wasn’t the same station we found you at. Halfway through, someone stood up and walked down the aisle, their black shadow covering your face. That was our favourite bit, but maybe it wouldn’t be as good as we remember. Beneath the cracks of our work, there lies a processing of things past. Written across the bathroom walls we scream ‘A+N WOZ ERE’, but when we return the lipstick is smudged out like the blush of a cheek.

- Athen & Nina

Athen Kardashian and Nina Mhach Durban (both b. 2000) are a British-Asian artist duo based in London. Their collaborative practice is founded upon an open and ongoing dialogue examining their shared experience of being raised in London by Indian mothers. Stories, food, clothes and objects passed from person to person, across houses, hands and borders, find a home in their work. The feminine diaspora and its link to world building is something the duo dissect, creating environments that reference the domestic and acknowledge, yet alter, the gallery space and its atmosphere. A recurring question raised by their practice remains; what is sacred? Religious deities and pop icons of the modern world exist side by side, and the home-made and the glamorous encounter. Piracy, age, ownership, love and circumstance all take effect on the work’s materials resulting in an articulation of personal and marginalised histories.

Recent solo exhibitions include 04.) I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman, The Shop at Sadie Coles HQ (London, 2024), I’ll Wear the Bangles From Your Hands, Soup Gallery (London 2024), Sleepover, Gathering (Glasshouse Projects) (London, 2023). As well as group exhibitions Duos: The Art of Collaboration, Charleston Trust (Lewes, UK, 2024),Christie’s Lates: Voices of Black Artistry, Christie’s (London, 2024), the sanctuaries we call I, No Man’s Art Gallery, (Amsterdam, 2024) Come Closer, Indigo+Madder (London, 2023), Beauty Art Tech Spa, Cornershop, (London, 2023), First Edition, Collective Ending HQ w. Baesianz, (London, 2023), The Ultimate Bootleg Experience, Studio Chapple, (London, 2023)