About Aislinn Leggett
artist statement
In the past few years, my work has become a way for me to explore the notion of memory. To create my images, I not only borrow from my own memories but I also use family photographic archives as well as found images. Memories or remembering a moment is often convoluted and difficult to reenact precisely. Working in a photomontage style permits me to deconstruct existing images and recreate fictitious moments and landscapes, enabling the process of trying to understand how memory functions and how events can easily be altered or shifted.Recently I have started working with garments that were once worn by my family. I have been taking apart clothes, sheets and blankets and installing the raw material or remnants in a sculptural manner and then photographing the installation. The process of the slow and manual deconstruction allows me to reflect, to try and remember certain events, which occurred with that individual. This is yet another process for me to explore the aspect of memory.
I am interested in history, the history of my family and the history of art but more specifically the history of photography and how we’ve come to use the medium today. It is often through photographs that we remember. The photos become an aide mémoir, objects in sort that enable us to remember people, spaces or a certain period in our life. Photographs and the realm of memory are intrinsically interweaved where one enables the other to survive. With my work I explore not only what or how we remember, but the myriad of ways in which remembering happens.
bio
Aislinn Leggett, born in Namur Quebec in 1981, is a photo-based artist, currently finishing her BFA at Concordia University. Working both with traditional photography and photomontage, her work explores memory through objects and archives. Aislinn has exhibited in Canada, the United States and Asia. In 2008 she was recipient of a Quebec council art grant and in 2011 was published in Front Line: Interviews with International Contemporary Photo-based Artists by Beijing Modern Press. She is also the editor and curator of Slightly Lucid, a contemporary photography blog that showcases the works of emerging and established artists. Aislinn currently lives and works in Montreal and is represented by Gallery d’Este.
