United State at Southern Guild Los Angeles is a vision for collective becoming

Southern Guild gallery presents United State, an exhibition featuring over 25 African and American artists at their Los Angeles space in the US. The group show runs from September 13 – November 1, 2025, with an aim to foster inclusion, empathy, kinship and exchange through the showcased sculpture art, painting, textile art, photography and collectible design. It seeks to promote plurality and shared humanity as a counterforce to socio-political polarisation. "United State asserts the radical need for plurality in a moment when perceptions of freedom and diversity are narrowing. The exhibition functions as a manifesto: a call to action to work together towards a shared humanity," Southern Guild mentions in the show's official description.

The ongoing art exhibition features work by US-based artists Tonia Calderon, Tofer Chin, Simphiwe Ndzube, Ferrari Sheppard and Chiffon Thomas, alongside artists from Southern Guild's program, Kamyar Bineshtarigh, Belinda Blignaut, Patrick Bongoy, Cheick Diallo, Andile Dyalvane, Jesse Ede, Madoda Fani, Jozua Gerrard, Katherine Glenday, Porky Hefer, Alexandra Karakashian, Bonolo Kavula, Terence Maluleke, Manyaku Mashilo, Chuma Maweni, Rich Mnisi, Nandipha Mntambo, Zanele Muholi, Brett Murray, Mmangaliso Nzuza, Oluseye, Zizipho Poswa, Usha Seejarim and Stanislaw Trzebinski.

The featured contemporary artists explore themes of cultural storytelling, craft as resistance and social resonance, using diverse mediums and approaches to materiality to address themes of racism, identity, class, social belonging and community. "Amidst the vast heterogeneity of medium and perspective, there is a sense of possibility, of forging vocabularies that are disruptive and playful, urgent and necessary," the gallery notes.

Muholi's acclaimed portraiture affirms Black Queer identity as a tool of visibility and resistance, while Nzuza's bold figuration offers a visceral claiming of space. Ceramicist Poswa monumentalises African womanhood through totemic forms, while Kavula's abstract textile works, created from shweshwe fabric, reflect generational memory and resilience. LA-based artist Ndzube continues his exploration of the 'Mine-moon', a mythic realm shaped by post-Apartheid South Africa, as Sheppard uses charcoal and gold leaf to elevate Black identity beyond narratives of trauma. Chin's site-specific mural on the gallery's exterior merges urban abstraction with architectural illusion, anchoring the exhibition within LA's landscape.

Material innovation is central to United State. Thomas's embroidered and collaged works evoke nostalgia and the search for belonging. Dyalvane’s large-scale ceramics pay homage to his Xhosa heritage, connecting deeply with the land and his ancestry. Iranian-born Bineshtarigh explores mark-making as an act of remembrance and erasure. Environmental consciousness also runs through the show. Calderon uses flower pigments and natural materials in layered meditations on fragility and beauty, while Hefer and Trzebinski engage with climate change through fantastical, nature-inspired forms. Blignaut's ceramics, crafted from wild clay, are vessels of place and story.

Southern Guild's United State insists on the urgent need for imagination, collaboration and cultural storytelling—a vision of art as a shared language for collective becoming. "Who are 'we'? What do we stand for in times of rupture and unrest? Where do we place our energy amidst change, towards fragmentation or connectivity? How do we cultivate reimagined understandings of place, meaning and futurity? United State does not simply respond to a fractured global present—it insists on new passages for collective becoming," Southern Guild concludes.