Leaf Collection: encounters with Madame E and her suit of environmentally conscious a(r)mour
Lisa Figge
January 13 - 31, 2009

Leaf Collection (detail view), mixed media installation, 2009

Performance, relational aesthetics, dialogical aesthetics, praxis, participation, community, and everyday life are all terms or concepts which have become important in shaping the kind of work I do. By straddling the territory that falls between meaning and meaninglessness (where meaninglessness is all the things that have not been brought into view in an understandable form), I am developing a politics that is all my own. For now part of this politics requires that I be present and visible in the community in which I live and that I distinguish myself as an individual. My instinct is that by proceeding along this ‘path’ my/this politics will take shape and become recognizable as the experience that I create for myself and others begins to constitute the nature of that meaning.

This work can also be understood as an intervention into society, where behavior is normalized and action (a political act) treated as questionable. For example wearing a suit of leaves on the bus and around town is not normal behavior but equally I think it would not normally be recognized as political either. However, at its core it is a political act of differentiation which brings to mind or into view certain principles that are imbedded in what constitutes our everyday life. By operating outside the normalized but artificial common sense of rational behavior that constitutes our everyday life I intend to demarcate an alternative way of being in the world that shifts our sense of purpose towards a political, ethical and ecological common sense.

Lisa Figge lives and works in Kingston. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours degree from Queens University in 2008 and is currently a Masters candidate in Environmental Studies at Queen’s. Her art practice includes sculpture, video and performative interventions that are primarily concerned with questioning the consumption habits of individuals and society as a whole along with the resistance towards adopting environmentally sustainable behaviours. She has exhibited in group shows throughout Kingston including the Union Gallery, Modern Fuel Artist Run Centre and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.