Valerie van Leersum

About me
Valerie van Leersum works out of her studio in an artists' community in northern Amsterdam. She creates images and installations that incorporate several mediums. Her work could be read as a quest for the meaning of the concept of "home", using objects, text, audio, collages and photography. At times her images are standalone; other times they are part of an installation or a "multitych". Her work moves between 'factual' history on the one hand, and the subjectively experienced on the other, between documentary and the imagined. Using a specific place or history, van Leersum searches for the imperceptible, linking the present with its history in order to find the holes in its story; the friction between fact and fiction. The earth, rootedness, the house and gravity stand thus opposed to migration, the nomadic and swarm dynamics. In that field of tension, she creates encounters, exchanges and connections. van Leersum has been working on "The Archive of the Inbetween" since 2012. This archive consists of a collection of works about transition, migration and repurposing. It is a work-in-progress based on the history of places and people on the move. Inspired by people who are looking for new ground versus ground in search of a new purpose, she researches stories and locations.