“Migration, or the condition of being a subject beyond borders, has always represented one of the most productive resources of aesthetic practices, contributing to the changing of settled cultures. Our symbiotic research focuses on the issue of transcultural spaces and migration from very different perspectives, in order to explore what Mieke Bal (2010) has recently defined as “migratory aesthetics”, that is “the current cultural and aesthetic moment in view of the merging of cultures”.
The State of L3 is an international network of artists blending different artistic media and disciplines. Active in the visual arts as well as in documentaries and literature. The collective was founded in Amsterdam and developed under the leadership of visual artist Antonio Jose Guzman. The collective staged the last years a series of exhibitions in Dakar, Aarhus, Amsterdam, Recife, Utrecht, Paris and Antwerp.
As an artist collective The State of L3 is an initiative that is the result of a network of different artists working together internationally through the following of a shared ideology and aesthetics. The State of L3 Collective seek new means of communication, a new experience on the track that previous generations have left behind and a new interpretation of the concept of Transcultural Identities. Therefore, The State of L3 directs its attention at the artists and their background as a source of inspiration and knowledge to form new images of universal communication.
The State of L3 is a transatlantic journal, an exchange of collective memories. With this project, The State of L3 is designed to obtain a portrait of artistic symbiosis between different cultures. The name of the collective was inspired by the African L3 human DNA haplogroup. L3 played a pivotal role in the history of the human species, because migrants carried it around the globe, inaugurating an intercontinental migration that eventually settled every major land mass on Earth. That group gave rise to every non-African DNA haplogroup.
Creative concept and idea: Antonio Jose Guzman, Founder and Creative Director.
2 channel video installation with boat made of asylum seekers suitcases | Gate of the Family video loop | The Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp M HKA | Belgium 2011
Collaboration with Sandim Mendes | The Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp M HKA | Belgium 2011
Installation View | Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp M HKA | Belgium 2011
Croix de Katanga | Installation View | Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp M HKA | Belgium 2011
Installation view | The Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp M HKA | Belgium 2011
6 channel video installation | Auto Textile & Soundscape | Smart Project Space | Amsterdam 2010
6 channel video installation | Auto Textile & Soundscape | Smart Project Space | Amsterdam 2010
6 channel video installation | Auto Textile & Soundscape | Smart Project Space | Amsterdam 2010
Reconstructed Monument | Ngor - Dakar, Senegal 2010
Published by Galleri Image, Arhus, Denmark 2011 - With articles from: Quinsy Gario, Rob Perrée, Raul Balai, Siri Driessen and Beate Cegielska.
Medina Projections Project | Dakar Biennial | Senegal 2010
Medina Projections Project | Dakar Biennial | Senegal 2010