Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

My name is Laveen, I grew up in Guelph, Canada and I currently live and work in Chicago. I like playing mermaids at the Point, ripping songs off YouTube to burn CDs, and hanging out with my three friends. I work in sculpture and installation, presently with ceramics, found objects, video, and photographic images.

Does the conceptual aspect of your work come to you from research or your dreams?

I don’t think about my dreams when I’m making work– maybe because the dreams I happen to remember are the ones I want to forget. The conceptual aspects of my work come from my research. Research is a broad term for me; sometimes, it’s narrow, like reading about specific subjects and theories (like horror and cinema), and other times it’s broad, like letting something grab my attention and just sitting with it. I think the strongest conceptual developments happen when I find relationships between unexpected things through various avenues of research.

What do you think it means to be making work right now in such a digitally inclined era? 

I have been thinking about this a lot; what role does social media play in an emerging artist’s practice? It’s a weird thing; it’s a push-pull relationship for me. Sometimes, it feels isolating and narrow; other times, I love it. In this context, I don’t mean love in a purely luscious romantic sense; I mean love as both pleasurable and unbearable. I think having to contend with the negative and positive aspects of the digital world, as it butts up against the real world at such a rapid pace, can be challenging but productive. Right now, it feels necessary to participate in the digital world as an emerging artist – but my mind changes constantly.

One of the best things about the digital world is that I can go online and experience something new and bizarre –  just as if I’m going on an adventure.

Do you think your relationship with the city of Chicago has influenced your work at all?

Chicago is the first major city I have lived in, it’s an American major city, and it has 100% influenced my work.

What are some recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on?

I’m currently working towards a two-part thesis exhibition called Substitute Equal Amounts, with my MFA cohort at The University of Chicago. It’s at the Logan Center for the Arts and opens May 2nd and May 28th. Come check it out if you’re in Chicago! I’ll also have a show opening September 19th at the Barbershop in Detroit! I am really excited about this show; the space is awesome and people running it are wonderful (S/O Jackson Gifford, Jack Jacket, and Daniel Eller) – I also just love Detroit.

Have you been reading or watching anything recently that you can’t stop thinking about?

Someone recently referenced The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams at one of my shows. I didn’t know of this book before, but if you want to ugly cry, this is your sign to buy this book and do exactly that. I’m thinking about it a lot, especially with all the love, death, difference, and foreverness in my work.

Can you tell us a memory of someone interacting with your work that frequently crosses your mind?

At Stadium Projects (in Guelph, Canada; ran by a great artist named Danan Lake), It was the opening night for the exhibition The Air Will Travel Behind. I had a taxidermy bunny sitting on the base of a constructed 8′ tall ceramic grim reaper that held a sharp metal scythe. It was terrifying –or at least I assumed it would have been, especially to a child… but I was wrong. This little girl comes in wearing the most fabulous red riding hood jacket– and she just sits beside this fountain of red-dyed apple juice and begins drinking. At some point, she made eye contact with the taxidermy bunny (at which point she had a stained red ring of apple juice around her mouth). She walked up to me and very, very, politely asked if she could pet my bunny… I was shocked because this weird and scary grim reaper was above the bunny –but I said yes. Then, as she’s gently petting this taxidermy bunny, she asks me, “Why isn’t the bunny moving?” Everyone got quiet, and we just looked around the room. Death is a part of the everyday, but it’s so uncomfortable to name it. I responded with something like, “Because it was loved so much, it had to be frozen forever.” She accepted my answer, but her father tried to explain that the bunny was dead – I don’t know if she fully grasped it then, but I appreciated him naming it for what it was. Then, after running around the exhibition for a bit on an apple juice sugar rush, she grabbed her colouring book. She set up her colouring station on the red carpet –in between two ghost circles–and started to colour.

She had no fear or hesitation about what the objects around her were. Other people felt unsettled about whatever supernatural possibility the objects in the show elicited, but this little girl didn’t feel that. It was so unexpected, and I was amazed at how overt it was in the room with her, that fear is something that is learned. It’s really obvious, but I was just so dumbstruck by it. It was the best memory I have of someone interacting with my work.

What was the last show you saw that stuck out to you?

I work at the front desk of The Renaissance Society, where I see a lot of exhibitions, and I get to see a lot of people experience those exhibitions. The Ren recently had Neil Beloufa’s Humanities exhibition installed in the fall, and it blew my mind as I got to see how people engaged with it over time. He laid out this brilliant trap, and I saw how people rushed to fall into it. It was dark – but also hilarious from a voyeurism standpoint. When I would go into the gallery to do my rounds, I got to see groups of people taking face scans (that looked like they were taking selfies) and watch them be engulfed in their own agenda (to see themselves). People would sit in the gallery for long durations (15-20 minutes), ultimately waiting for their individual videos to be generated so they could play them on the large screens. Humanities didn’t just show objects relating to our current moment; it got people performing their own self-interest as a spectacle for observation. It was a great exhibition to be a gallery attendant.

https://renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/556/-humanities/

How do you source the materials you incorporate as primary subject matter? Do you material choices come with limitations?

I find things in the world and take them home, take photos, or recreate them. I love thrift stores, Facebook Marketplace, trash bins, Craigslist, eBay, and the internet for sourcing materials to work with. I also love the amount of strange human interactions I have when sourcing from some of these places. When I’m sourcing ready-made things, they come with their own set of limitations. I love finding stuff that I wished was different in some way ie: scale or material, etc. It is sometimes frustrating, but I learn way more from the materials if I force my own desires on them rather than just accepting their limitations. I have an “I can fix them” mentality,  and as we know, that doesn’t always work out – but hopefully you learn something.

What are you really excited about right now?

I am so excited that it’s almost that time of year where everyone’s getting a surplus of vitamin D, and all the mermaids come out to play and/or EAT.

 

Interview conducted and edited by Liam Owings