Dearest Nanda,

In a letter to the late Nanda Vigo, curator Marjolein van der Loo takes the reader through her journey of a research period at ZERO Foundation in Düsseldorf, where, as a curator in residence, she dove into the work of the prolific Italian artist and designer. The artists’ love for science fiction serves as a starting point for the research and is used as a perspective to reflect on the artworks and theories that Vigo produced during her time as a member of the ZERO group. 

The letter aims, like Vigo’s artworks, to function as a portal for time travel, retrieving the artist's footsteps through a contemporary lens by visiting Milanese locations and people important in Vigo’s life. 

Through a stream of consciousness, the writing moves from insights into the experience of the artist's work to questions of the political and social responsibility of artists in the 1960s and now. The role of fascism in post-war Italy and the current Zeitgeist bump heads in an attempt at analysis within their historical contexts. Light theory, Star Trek, aliens, and monsters are discussed from a critical feminist perspective, and time travel is attempted to understand the same topics in the context of the 1960s. Finally, the letter poses the octopus as a creature most closely related to Vigo's artworks. Maybe the reader can be convinced of the argument, but the persuasion of the addressee will always remain fiction. 

The letter is combined with excerpts from zines that van der Loo made to process the texts and visuals of the research. New visuals are introduced by Yannick Nuss that respond to the text and its context.

Graphic design Yannick Nuss