MTL Collective was founded in New York in 2010 by Amin Husain (who had arrived from Palestine to study law) and Nitasha Dhillon (originally from India with a degree in Mathematics) one year after they met at the Centre for Photography (ICP). Although they may appear to have developed in quite different worlds, they share the common background of having grown up in military contexts – one in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the other with a father in the military. With MTL, they combine research, activism, and artistic practices in their analysis and updating of socio-political situations (the Palestinian occupation, the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, etc.), which they recount through film and photographic reports, interventions, and installations. In 2011 they created the theory magazine Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Their work was presented at the Athens Biennale (2016), the Venice Biennale (2015), the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk), the ZKM (Karlsruhe, 2014), and at the 10th São Paulo Architecture Biennial. MTL is a member of several militant collectives, including the Decolonial Cultural Front (DCF) and the Gulf Labor Artists Coalition.
