La Biennale di Venezia presents the Silver Lion to Chuquimamani-Condori, an American of Bolivian origin, and a visionary voice in contemporary experimental music.
“For the innovative contribution to contemporary music, the multidisciplinary artistic experimentation and participation in a wider cultural discourse, connecting music to themes of identity and history, La Biennale awards the Silver Lion to Chuqimamani-Condori”.
“A multidisciplinary artist and musician of Bolivian origin – reads the motivation for the award – Chuquimamani–Condori, whose project is also known as Elysia Crampton Chuquimia, is a visionary voice in contemporary experimental music. Their work redefines the boundaries of electronic composition, interweaving the folk sounds of the native Aymara tradition with digital technologies and the club culture. Rooted in the Aymara cosmology and decolonial philosophy, their music stands as an act of resistance to linear conventions of time and western musical structures. With a career that extends across two decades, Chuquimamani-Condori has developed an innovative approach to sound through the use of sampling, polyrhythmic structures, futuristic melodic synth and complex personal narratives. Their aesthetic of sound, which blends folk and the hyper-contemporary, is distinguished by the construction of maximalist layers that reflect their cultural legacy and queer identity. Their artistic research is not only decolonial practice, but also a form of cultural resistance and queer politics, that can open new aesthetic and conceptual paths on themes of identity, diaspora and decolonisation. Chuquimamani-Condori’s music does not just reflect existing traditions, it re-elaborates the potential of sound as a means of historical storytelling, identity and transformation”.
