'3B Collective: Highway Hypnosis' Embraces the Artisan and Artist in Equal Breath
Expressions of cultural resilience crescendo across borders and time.
Craft Contemporary presents 3B Collective: Highway Hypnosis, now on view in Los Angeles. The exhibition maps the cultural history of 3B Collective, a group of multi-disciplinary Angelenos, as they re-envision forces of migration and adaptation through cultural iconography. In a constellation of murals, ceramics, masks, and textiles, a look back on the group’s work brings hidden stories of indigeneity, labor, and commodity to center stage.
In collaboration with skilled artisans in Oaxaca, Jalisco, El Salvador, and Baja California, the works of Highway Hypnosis embody expressions of cultural resilience that flex across borders and time. For “Freeway Weaving”, 3B comes together with Tallerocoho8, a textile space in Oaxaca founded by Beto Ruiz. With dyes made from native plants, the tapestry shows a road section reaching its arms into a rich pink sky. This exchange of labor makes a path for growing ancestral networks amidst the urbanity of Los Angeles, as the group imagines a world beyond sole authorship against the standard set by Western practice.
The original members of 3B Collective met while pursuing their undergraduate studies at UCLA. Since then, their work has come to envelop Los Angeles in a series of murals, exhibitions, and large-scale public artworks. Both native and immigrants to the city, the artists of 3B forge expressions of pride for their homelands through compelling craft.
3B Collective: Highway Hypnosis is now on view at Craft Contemporary until September 8.
Craft Contemporary
5814 Wilshire Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA
