Artists

Athen Kardashian, Nina Mhach Durban

Press release

Soup presents Athen Kardashian & Nina Mhach Durban’s latest solo exhibition ‘04.) I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman’ at The Shop, Sadie Coles HQ. South London-based Kardashian & Durban began their collaborative practice in 2022, having originally met on their foundation course at Kingston University in 2018. 

United by a shared interest in diasporic femininity, girlhood fandom and turn-of-the-millennium popular culture – consolidated by their twinned upbringing in London under Indian mothers – Athen & Nina’s collaboration centres around an almost subconscious ongoing dialogue and a mutual understanding and appreciation of each other’s lived experience. Juvenescent scrapbooking, teenage fandom and religious devotion converge in shrine-like constructions of collected imagery and ephemera, echoing the hand-crafted collages that adorn their maternal grandmother’s fridges and mantelpieces. Evidence of their Indian heritage merge and mingle with quintessential Y2K kitsch, as bindis meet Bratz dolls, bangles meet Gogo’s Crazy Bones and Bollywood starlets brush shoulders with Hollywood heartthrobs.