Christina Leslie: The Album

In response to the transient quality of photography, curator and historian Jennifer Blessing has claimed that “every photograph becomes a memorial to the past.” Inspired by this sentiment, Pickering-based artist Christina Leslie created a new body of work exploring the question of how to memorialize the past when few images of it exist.

Leslie’s father was born in Jamaica in 1950, and only three images of his childhood remain. It was not until he immigrated to Canada at the age of 19 that there began a substantive photographic record of his life. The artist’s mother, on the other hand, also born in 1950, grew up in Canada with English/Canadian parents and her childhood was recorded at every stage. In the form of a collaged family photo album, Leslie’s The Album memorializes her parents’ individual and shared histories. Its pages are filled with images of their childhoods, marriage, and now 48-year relationship together. Presented as an online exhibition and public artwork on the front of the gallery, this series points to the slippery and permeable nature of memory and identity.

Curated by Leila Timmins