Antonio José Guzman
‘Blackness is a journey, reaching the destination is not an easy voyage. Reconstructing our identity is a trip back to our roots.’
Sonic Indigo, an Afrofuturistic Voyage Into Dub (part of the Electric Dub Station series) (2020)
For Refresh Amsterdam, Antonio José Guzman worked together with visual artist and designer Iva Jankovic. They reinterpret the transatlantic colonial history of the colour history of indigo, which is deeply connected with the colonial history of the Dutch nation. Indigo has its origins on different continents: South America, Africa, and Asia. The African slave trade in particular made it valuable. The sonic structures and songs that Africans sang on the indigo, sugar, and coffee plantations had a profound influence on the history of the Americas. Electric Dub Station is a labyrinthine, site-specific installation and a conceptualised Panamanian-Congolese procession.
Antonio José Guzman
Antonio José Guzman (Panama, 1971) is a multidisciplinary visual artist who lives and works in Amsterdam, Panama City, Dakar and Gujarat. In his work, he reflects on issues of social justice and is particularly interested in tracing the colonial history of textiles. He works with different media, and presents alternative conceptions of memory, time, identity and social collectivism.
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Photo credit: OSCAM – Electric Dub Station, photos by Marlise Steeman, 2020
This project is partially sponsored by
