The Wignall Museum/Gallery at Chaffey College is pleased to announce the opening of two exhibitions: Past Imperfect presenting the work of three contemporary Canadian artists, and Homecoming featuring new photographs by Vietnamese-born artist Dinh Q. Lê. The exhibitions will be on view starting Monday, October 25 and run through Wednesday, November 24, 2004. The opening reception will be held on Thursday, November 4 from 7 to 9pm. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Dr. Levin is also an independent curator. Her most recent project, Digital Matter Digital Memory, was organized as a series of three exhibitions examining the relationship between memory and information technologies. Past Imperfect is the final installment of this project. Digital Matter, Digital Memory was produced by the Kenderdine Art Gallery at the University of Saskatchewan. Patricia Levin completed her Ph.D. in Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine.

Dinh Q. Lê, Anne Ramsden, Isabelle Hayeur, and Nicole Jolicoeur

Past Imperfect curated by Dr. Patricia Levin examines the relationship between memory and the photograph in the age of digital technologies. The advent of photography as a modern visual technology has had a profound impact on our culture. The photographic image--first understood as “the mirror with a memory” and more recently in its post-mechanical forms as digitally manipulable electronic impulses—permeates many aspects of contemporary life. The ubiquity of the photograph as keepsake, historical document, art form, seductive advertisement, and ultimately as cultural artifact, continues to transform our ideas about who we are and how we understand the world we live in. Past Imperfect brings together the work of Montréal-based artists, Anne Ramsden, Isabelle Hayeur, and Nicole Jolicoeur to examine our fascination with the photographic image.

In Homecoming, Dinh Q. Lê uses found photographs as well as his own to examine Vietnam’s recent history and the devastating impact of historical events on individual lives. Lê links personal stories with broader social and political ones by combining images of the Vietnam War and contemporary Ho Chi Minh City with old family photographs. These family photographs are not Lê’s own, but were salvaged by Lê from second-hand shops in Vietnam. The people in these snapshots are unidentified and represent family histories and memories that were lost, abandoned, or left behind.