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Emanuelle Léonard
 

The gaze that we cast on the places that surround us and the workspace are also of concern to Emmanuelle Léonard. Since 2001, she has been developing a project in collaboration with workers from all walks of life—real estate, arts and leisure, science, education, public services, finance and insurance, and more—inviting each to produce images of their particular work space. Her role is limited to selecting and then publishing the images in the form of photographic installations, newspapers, or posters. In her most recent installation, Statistical Landscape (In the Eye of the Worker) (2004), created in collaboration with workers in Toronto, the scale of the images makes it possible to gauge how representative various sectors of activity are. For the creation of these images, the one directive she gave her collaborators was to photograph their workplace without the presence of humans. The emptiness of the spaces renders with greater ease the gaze that the workers cast on them; rather than directing our attention to the overall situation, it allows us to see through the eyes of the worker, as the subtitle of this series indicates. This procedure makes it possible to introduce an aspect of the invisible that would otherwise be inaccessible to the viewer.

 



Emmanuelle Léonard, Statistical Landscape (in the eye of the worker), 2004, 20 prints (variable dimensions), ink jet, facemounted on plexisglass and posters, dimension of the installation, 5 x 3,5 m. 1. Sean Tai (Information and cultural industries), 53 cm x 36 cm; 2. Mike Collins (Other services (except public administration), 53 cm x 33 cm; 3. Sean Reuther (Manufacturing), 104 cm x 69 cm; 4. Reno Strano (Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services)), 63,5 cm x 46 cm. Courtesy of the artist.