Ilga Leimanis

Born in Montreal, Canada. Lives and works in London, England.

I am interested in collections and collaborative process. My current landscape series is based on research from the military collection at King's College London Archive. I poured through personal papers, letters, diaries and some official reports, looking for descriptions of travel undertaken by the British army. As I make a home in the UK (with a North American accent and an Eastern European passport), I am reminded of my own family history when my grandparents were refugees on their way to Canada, and how war severed a family history, forever changing the trajectory of our lives. I am interested in finding both the sublime and the banal in these (mainly) one-line descriptions by men preparing for war.

Last year, I was invited to join a 'social networking' website and my recent portrait series, friends' friends, (2006-) is based on this newfound network of people on my computer screen who fall within 'two degrees of separation'. Intrigued by the image that people choose for themselves online - funny, serious, sexy, quirky... I am drawn to their rhetorical clarity, their earnestness and amateurness.