Ahreum Lee
Montreal, CanadaBiography
Ahreum Lee is a musician and interdisciplinary media artist from Seoul (South Korea). She is currently based in Montreal where he lives and works.
In 2019, she was a finalist for the Emerging Digital Artist Award held by EQ Bank and Trinity Square Video (Toronto). She has exhibited and performed in Montreal at Fonderie Darling, Ada x, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, as well as Third Shift Festival (Saint John) and Axis Lab (Chicago). Additionally, she has participated in the Intersections | Cross-sections (Toronto) and In Motion: Performance, Unsettled Borders (Chicago) conferences and Emerging BAiR program at Banff Art and Creativity Centre.
Lee began her career as the co-founder and frontwoman of experimental art-rock band Juck Juck Grunzie. After spending nearly a decade producing records and touring internationally, she extended her practice into video and multimedia installation work. Through various media, Lee is interested in examining the feedback loop between the individual and society. Her work questions the way fears and anxieties hide within the power dynamics of society and how one can subvert the power dynamics in this relationship. Her recent installations have centred on the influence of algorithms on individuals’ perceptions of reality and the hidden anxieties revealed through our relationships with new technology.
About the artwork
My Mother is Data
Part of an ongoing research-creation project since 2019, My Mother is Data explores how data impacts both memory and intimacy. The artwork compiles numerous pieces from traditional mediums such as prints, bronze, and ceramics to new media such as video, sound, performance, 3D printing, 3D animation and web art.
My Mother is Data stems from the artist’s relationship with her estranged mother. Since the age of ten, Lee and her birth mother have only been in contact through emails and phone calls. In 2014, her estranged father contacted Lee to inform her that her mother had passed away. She later found this information was a lie after searching government documents. This experience made her question the fragility of the relationship with her mother, and the impact virtual communication has on intimacy and memory.
COME MEET THE ARTIST
PLACE MONTREAL TRUST
(IVANHOÉ CAMBRIDGE)
1500 Avenue McGill College
Entrance Avenue McGill College, Level 4 – Room D014B
Residence completed
Photo : Camille Dubuc
Artworks by the artist
