ARTISTS APPROACH
kimura-lemoine’s life undeniably questions the binarity of gender, the perception of gender and racial identities, linguistics in the voluntary or involuntary “loss” through translation, and the body as a commercial object, all this through painting, digital works, experimental video, the documentary and through writing. By giving a voice and a visibility to minorities, the archiving of stories is a way to restore the credibility of a Eurocentric memory.
Kim Waldron is a contemporary visual artist based in Montreal. She frequently uses self-portraits to take a position on various current social issues. Over the years, she has been able to challenge the role of the image and the importance of context as discourse. The conceptual framework of her photographic series usually rests on the boundaries that define reality and fiction. If self-representation is extremely important in her work, the use of varied contexts to build her narratives is equally so.
THE ARTWORK
KIM KIM
Photography, 2019
Knowing that most interracial and international adoptions send children of colour to western Caucasian families, artist and activist kimura byol-nathalie lemoine wished to present a different vision of what interracial adoption could be.
To make this happen, artist Kim Waldron and kimura-lemoine decided to photograph staged portraits of everyday life and the key moments in the journey of a fictitious adoptee. These photographs tell the story of a Caucasian adopted by a Canadian family of Korean origin. Through this reversal, images seemingly banal at first glance become interesting and intriguing.
The Kim Kim project develops the previous photographic and video work of Kim Waldron incorporating the self-portrait in hypothetical situations in order to question aspects of identity and social conditioning. Her photographic work uses a documentary aesthetic to lend credibility to fictional portraits. This collaboration with kimura-lemoine uses the aesthetics of family photographs, a Korean family named Kim and the Kim Waldron’s real parents to create an imaginary and improbable story of international adoption.
Curator: Art Souterrain
