Plinth

Full of secrets, 04.) I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman is an exercise in ‘fake-it-till-you-make-it’ where everything is nothing what it seems. The burgundy wallpaper is reminiscent of faux-leather booths in Wetherspoons. Golden coins piled in the corner of the room are actually chocolate, while the sleek art-display shelves house DVDs from the artists’ personal collections, including a pirated copy of Slumdog Millionaire (2008) . The exhibition is a faux-treasure trove of knock offs and fake riches, while incense burns to attract 'good fortune' and 'gold rain'.

Such ironies run throughout the show in a constant interplay between fragility and security: there is a card castle of High School Musical Special Top Trumps that sits on one of the DVD-shelves. The work feels as if the slightest movement could cause it to collapse, until you get closer and notice the glue that holds the cards together. The work orchestrates fragility while everything, in fact, is secured. This stands in contrast to the structural realities of the diasporic experience, which is in fact characterised by a lack of security. Negotiating a space in between cultures and decades, united in the hands of two best friends, 04.) I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman encapsulates our collective and personal efforts of making a home wherever we go – despite all the reasons we left, or had to leave – that in the end proves to be the glue that holds our card castle together.

Decorating your childhood bedroom with stickers, posters and magazine-cutouts is the earliest memory of home-making for many. It’s an exercise you return to as you move flats, change cities, countries, personalise work spaces, studios, and, in the present case, stage an exhibition adjacent to one of London’s most prestigious commercial art galleries. In 04). I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman, Kardashian and Mhach Durban bring their homes with them, performing the familiar task of placing trinkets, sticking shiny golden stars and sharing their favourite CDs and DVDs. Responding directly to the context of The Shop at Sadie Coles HQ, Kardashian and Mhach Durban’s treasures – collected over the years, gifted by family and friends, found in charity shops and on eBay – they play with the idea of ‘faking it’, and ultimately end up making the space their own.

Here, Kardashian and Mhach Durban’s freshly decorated home at The Shop, speaks to the nostalgia for one’s adolescence. The Y2K revival in particular is marked by a twinned sense of hope and despair: the turn-of-the-millennium promised a ‘bright future ahead’; the internet was going to bring everything and everyone comfortably close; any object of desire could be cast in sparkly pink plastic. That vision of the future, now arrived, is not so sparkly – perhaps we want to return to dreams of a brighter horizon. Whether in response to the collective anxieties that underpin the present day, or in a sense of romantic appreciation of a not-so-long-ago past, 04.) I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman resembles a home familiar to many, one that – despite all the twists and turns, ironic moments and secrets – is welcoming in its sincerity.

By Pia Zeitzen and Sasha Shevchenko of Kollektiv Collective