Dana Leslie

Fine Art BA (Hons)

Series of immersive works encouraging interaction with the sharing, documenting, and battling of gendered experiences through a compassionate lens.

About

Black and white photo of Dana Leslie standing in a room with patterned walls

Encompassing installation, sculpture, print, and video, the exhibited work is comprised of three distinct pieces all reflecting on the corelation between identity, memory and systemic structures.  

This body of work is an extension of the website I launched last year, logthelocation.com, which invites anyone who currently identifies, or has previously identified, as female to submit locations where they have experienced a form of GBV – from sexist micro-aggressions to more serious harassments. The anonymous submissions are added to a public interactive map, creating a living archive of individual experiences. 

Researcher Dr Brené Brown defines stories as being “data with a soul” and through my art I create ‘visual databases’. After photographing and printing the submitted locations, I present them as a tangible database, encapsulating the collective issue as a walk-in installation. Considering how we can nurture compassion through art, the pieces intertwine the personal and the impersonal, eradicating the distance we put between ourselves and the stories we read. By including the spectator in the narrative, the passive viewer becomes an active participant, helping relay the themes of power, awareness, and accountability. 

Documentation Photographs of Logged Locations

Taken from outside of the 3D steel frame cube, a row of prints are in the foreground depicting a small tower and houses. In the background are the back and left walls of the cube all with many hanging prints strung up. The prints are out of focus but are in black and white and are small rectangles.
Close-up of projection. One quarter of the circular white table is in shot. A projection of a woman has her hands clenched into fists. The top of a chair can be seen behind the chair lining up with where the hands are being projected. The rest of the image is dark.
A close-up of a person wearing a green shirt and rings on their hands manoeuvres the white claw machine's black joystick and has their fingers on the black buttons. The claw is open and hovering above a white mask.

Originally conceived for the Tayside region, the website has garnered over a hundred submissions spanning eight countries. I photograph all of them within reach. Through my two-part printing process, I aim to convey the fragility of our memories and the doubt we are programmed to implant in our minds when recalling sexist incidents. 

208 acetone transfers of scanned inkjet prints on silk, steel, 208 x 233 x 208 cm

Details of installation

Our Table (2022)

An image of four women’s (of different colours and one has tattoos) hands all holding each other’s’ is projected onto a white table. There are four seats around the table, one for every pair of hands in the image. The seats are in line with hands making the bodies absent but the arms and hands present.
An image of four women’s (of different colours and one has tattoos) hands projected onto a white table. They are extending their arms out to each other. There are two people sitting at the table holding hands on the tabletop. The arms of the four women are being projected on top of the sitting women holding hands, causing some of the arms to be on top of clothing.

Our Table (2022) is a video installation featuring four women, each relaying their own story through non-verbal communication; hands only, convey each woman’s emotions. The piece encourages viewers to engage with the work, inviting them to sit down around the table, the projected hands morphing into extensions of their own.

Video installation, projected from above onto table. Duration: 10 minutes 6 seconds

Details of video installation

Which Mask?

A white claw machine with a front control box with a black joystick and three black buttons. The machine has a perspex flap, a white claw, wiring, blue LEDs (casting a blue glow), three perspex windows and the black is acrylic mirror causing reflections. Inside the claw machine are white masks.
Close-up of inside thee claw machine. Blue LED lights are on at the top of the image inside the claw machine. Black wiring hangs down attached to the white claw which has five prongs. White masks fill the claw machine a third of the way. The back door mirror reflects back the claw and some masks.

The hand-built claw machine asks viewers to consider who holds the power to shape and choose others’ identities. Visitors are invited to play and ‘win’ a mask, the claw an extension of the person in control. The machine should be fun, as they are made for kids. However, in this context it creates connotations of naivety and ignorance, calling for a better, more informed society beyond inequality and patriarchal power.

Hand-built claw machine with Ali Napier, 198 x 80 x 80 cm

Details of claw machine

Downloads

If you have any further enquires, or feedback regarding my work, please do not hesitate to contact me via email or on Instagram.

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