YOU WERE MY CUP OF TEA

Meters and meters of tangled textiles churn and float on the surface of the Indian ocean before washing ashore. Waste patchworks drift and swirl like ghosts, dragging their abundance and meaning across the rim of the beach where water and sand meet. Mitumba fabrics and clothes scavenged from the streets of Amsterdam and Dar es Salaam, take centre stage in Jan van Esch’s video installation. In this rite of passage, the ghosts in the clothes speak of waste and beauty. Through their patterns, messages and imagery they signify identity and power relations.

Through this performance at the final stages in the lives of these clothes, the garments rise once more from waste to value, a returning theme in Jan’s works. The video-installation explores a modern retelling of the tower of Babel, through the entanglement of the textiles’ geographical origins. Our clothes communicate who we are and what we wish to express. Along the East African coast, the use of cloth for non-verbal communication via the kanga has a long tradition. Yet imported textiles often bear foreign languages, logos, images and icons that give the illusion of a global conversation while in fact remaining unclear beyond their corporate origins and
cultural context: More monologues than dialogue the foreign tongues messages speak to no one in particular but the marketplace.

In Das Kapital, Marx wrote that profit relies not only on extracting surplus value or appropriating scarce resources, but also on the ability to dump waste, emissions and excess free of charge over the neighbors’ fence. Today, this also incorporates nonphysical
trash such as marketing slogans and iconography. With this video installation we invite you to enter a conversation sparked by the images, logos and text printed on imported garments, clothes and textile waste.

Scavengers

Lazaro Samwel
Jan van Esch

Performers

Happyness Mussa Ndaki, Stephano Anjawa Mlelwa, Enock Emil Fungo, Hassan Hasumani Mboge, Hawa Muhamed Mizogi, Lazaro Samwel, Jan van Esch

Director of Photography, Editor and Sound Design

Dipesh Shapriya

Camera operator

Jimmy Mathias
Ari Snow
Dipesh Shapriya

Soundtrack

African Open Improvising
Halima Abdallah, Waziri Mwanandumi, Zefania Ezekiel, Damgem Mohamed, Mohamed Twaba

Curator

Mike Mavura

Patchworks mitumba (8), 360cm height, diverse diameter

Lazaro Samwel
Jan van Esch
Special thanks

MUDA Africa Rachel Kessi, Ian Mwaisunga, Suleiman Kombo, Nicolas Roa Concha, Belia Klaassen, Martina González

Copyright Jan van Esch 2025