The Nest Collective is a multidisciplinary arts collective living and working in Nairobi. Founded in 2012, the collective has created works in film, music, fashion, visual arts and literature such as the critically-acclaimed queer anthology film Stories of Our Lives, which has so far screened in over 80 countries and won numerous awards. The Nest Collective also founded HEVA—Africa’s first creative business fund of its kind—to strengthen the livelihoods of East Africa’s creative entrepreneurs.
The collective uses an applied-research holistic methodology to create cultural bodies of work with film, fashion, literature and other media. These interventions are designed to engage audiences using multiple points of entry and reflection, thus enabling nuanced consideration, discussion and debate of the issues raised, while also advancing aesthetic and artistic value.
Due to the multidisciplinary nature of their work, the collective have screened film and TV works at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Berlinale, the BFI, the MoMA and other festivals in Colombia, Ghana, Cape Town, Botswana, Seoul, Taiwan and Lagos, exhibited their visual arts works at the Vitra Design Museum, the Royal Pavilion, the Guggenheim Bilbao, hosted talks and performances at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Design Indaba and What Design Can Do, held DJ parties in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, all while continuing to draw connections and parallels back to their home in Nairobi.