Artist Ahreum Lee, Winner of the Impressions Residency 2021
Ahreum Lee. Photo Minju Kim | Ahreum Lee, Memory Palace, 2019, one channel video, duration: 17 min. 30 s. Courtesy of the artist
The MMFA, in collaboration with the Conseil des arts de Montréal, has announced the 2021 winner of the Impressions residency: artist Ahreum Lee. This residency, which includes a $7,000 grant, enables a visual artist from Montreal's cultural communities to carry out a research-creation project that sheds a unique, contemporary perspective on the Museum's collections.
Seoul native Ahreum Lee is a multidisciplinary artist and musician who has lived in Montreal since 2016. She holds a degree in Media Art from Kaywon University of Art & Design, and a Master of Fine Art – Studio Art (Intermedia) from Concordia University. Her work explores the permeability of the borders between the real world and virtual environments. Through computer-generated images, Web-sourced images, performance, sculpture and video, the artist examines how the power dynamics embedded in our everyday technologies influences our emotions and our view of reality.
During the eight-week residency, Lee will select representations of the mother figure from the Museum's African, Asian and European art collections with the support of the MMFA Conservation team. Based on the average of the pixel values of the images, she will model a 3D maternal icon that will be integrated into a holographic installation. This project is the natural continuation of her series “My Mother is a Data”, inspired by her own mother from whom she has been separated since the age of 10.
