About the project
The Future Histories Project
Photographer Hugo Glendinning said "If you can revive it, it's not dead". Artist Leonie Leivenzon revives items which have been discarded and forgotten within books donated to Op Shops. Sometimes resuscitated while at other times reincarnated, these items and the books in which they were found serve as the source material for Leonie's work.
The Future Histories Project stems from a compulsive drive to collect and collate while at the same time strives to prolong the life of objects which otherwise had reached the end of their useful existence. It is a generative art making process which uses collecting as a methodology for creating moments of questioning while exploring the nature of objects and their ability to embody a history.
Relying on a combination of chance and structure, The Future Histories Project acts an idea generating mechanism, Rather than viewing the value and meaning if each found book and item as fixed, their discovery is an opportunity to explore different themes and concepts. The works produced are not tied to a single medium. They include textiles, video, text, photography, painting or sculpture depending upon the particle books or items being responded to. The work also addresses concepts that dispute the duality between human and non-human, animate and inanimate. While it may be a response to one object or one book, The Future Histories Project as a whole is a record, not just of the books and objects but of the people who donated them, thereby establishing a thread connecting all the different components with myself and the viewer.
About Leonie Leivenzon
Originally trained as a doctor, Leonie worked as General Practitioner for 15 year before becoming a hypnotherapist. She has now changed careers once more to become an artist and is in her final year of studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Monash University in Melbourne.
Solo Shows
2015 3 Days of Chaos, the Owl and Cat, Melbourne, Australia
2016 The Adventures of Angela and Alfonso, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2018 Distant Intimacy, Intermission Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2019 The Mythic Poem, Intermission Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Group Shows
2015 Small Scale Art Exhibition, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 Group One Finalist, Lethbridge 10,000 Small Scale Art Award, Brisbane, Australia
2015 Wild Horses, Hogan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 Figures and Faces, Beth Hulme Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 40x40 Art Exhibition, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2016 Myths and Memories, Beth Hulme Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2018 Milk Crate Show, Intermission Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2018 Wall to Wall MADA Exhibition, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
2018 Atlas of the Unseen and Unspoken, A Constructed World, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2019 Milk Crate Show, Intermission Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2019 Broken Telephone, Intermission Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2019 Collection: an imagining by emerging curators, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
2019 Physical Absence: A Human Portrait, Missing Persons Space, Melbourne, Australia
Residencies
2020 No. 29, Margaret River, Western Australia
Grants
2020 Monash MPavillion Student Art Grant