Emmanuelle Léonard (2009)

Emmanuelle Léonard’s Statistical Landscape (In the Eye of the Worker) (2004) is a set of photographs taken by various people in their places of work. The artist relied on Statistics Canada data to select the various job sectors and to produce a wall installation in which the dimensions of each photograph are proportional, percentage wise, to the number of people working in each of sector of activity depicted.

Emmanuelle Léonard was born in 1971 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She lives and works in Montreal.
www.emmanuelleleonard.org

Since 1995, Emmanuelle Léonard has been questioning the image through her means of production and dissemination. Her photo series offer a succession of genre types ranging from self-portraiture (Kill the Drunk Woman, 2004) to urban landscape by way of short news items. Each reflects a specific shooting strategy, continually replaying the protocols of newspaper and magazine photography (Faits divers, 2004), sociological studies (General Motors, Ste-Thérèse (The End), 2004), and surveillance devices (Gardia, resguàrdeme, 2005). In her project Les Travailleurs (2001), the artist appropriates the anonymous visions of others, in the process marking her own withdrawal as the creative force behind the piece. With her penchant for ordinary places, Léonard has photographed unremarkable spaces, such as factories, zoos, and offices, devoid of all human presence. Issues such as the realism and documentary value of the image underlie each of her deci- sions and determine an approach to the subject that is rooted in the time and space of its daily existence. Attentive to genres considered minor — amateur photography (Statistical Landscape (In the Eye of the Worker), 2004) and forensic photographs (Une sale affaire, 2007) — Léonard calls into play the status of the photograph in social space. She questions the relationship between private and public, bringing particular scrutiny to bear on issues related to the protection of private property.