First Friday

Join MOCA for a walkthrough of Olafur Eliasson’s OPEN led by writer, theorist and Studio Olafur Eliasson fellow Neema Githere.

Neema Githere (b. Nairobi, Kenya) is a writer, artist, and guerrilla theorist whose work explores love and indigeneity in a time of algorithmic debris. Having dreamt themselves into the world via the internet from an early age, Githere’s work prototypes relationality-as-art through experiments that span social design, community organizing, travel, image-making and digital ritual. As a 2023-24 Practitioner Fellow at Stanford University's Digital Civil Society Lab, Githere embarked on a project to develop the guidebook for a “Data Healing Clinic” – an experimental center for internet-addiction rehabilitation. Githere’s concept of Afropresentism––a term they coined in 2017 to explore diasporic embodiment in the age of Big Data––has influenced conferences and exhibitions across four continents. Githere has performed, lectured and consulted at a range of educational and cultural institutions including Afrotectopia, The Radical Hood Library, Princeton University, the National Museum of Qatar, and Cheche Books (Nairobi, Kenya) among others. In 2024, Githere was named as one of Olafur Eliasson's "Artists to Watch".

This program is organized by Justen Leroy, Director of Public Programs and Community Outreach, and Alitzah Oros, Public Programming Associate, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.