Sonia Leber

Sonia Leber is known for her distinctive installation artworks using video, sound, architecture, ecological fieldwork, and public participation. Her practice draws on cinematic methods (visual and sonic) to build up highly detailed and conceptual videoworks that emerge from social, architectural and technological settings. Often developed through research-based residencies in collaboration with David Chesworth, these videoworks emerge from the real but exist significantly in the realm of the imaginary.

Group exhibitions in collaboration with David Chesworth include 56th Biennale of Venice (2015); 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); ‘Who’s Afraid of Public Space?’, ACCA, Melbourne (2021); 'Freedom of Sleep', Fondation Fiminco, Paris (2021); 'The Last Reader', annex M, Megaron, Athens (2018); 'The State We Are In', Galeria Labirynt, Lublin, Poland (2018); 'And Tomorrow And', Index, Stockholm (2018); 'The Score', Ian Potter Museum of Art (2017); ‘Call of the Avant-Garde’, Heide (2017); ‘Borders, Barriers, Walls’, MUMA, Melbourne (2016); ‘Melbourne Now’, NGV (2013-14) and ‘Stealing the Senses’, Govett-Brewster Gallery, NZ (2011).

 

Sonia Leber and David Chesworth’s solo exhibitions include ‘What Listening Knows’, Messums Wiltshire, UK (2021); 'Architecture Makes Us: Cinematic Visions of Sonia Leber and David Chesworth', Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2018), UNSW Galleries, Sydney (2019) and Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane (2019); ‘Zaum Tractor’, Gridchinhall, Moscow, Russia (2013); ‘Space-Shifter’, Detached/MONA FOMA, Hobart (2012); and ‘Almost Always Everywhere Apparent’, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2007).

 

Sonia is a member of RMIT’s Sound Art and Auditory Culture lab (SAAC). She was a visiting research fellow at Museum of Arts and Applied Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney; and an Associate Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH).

Sonia is the recipient of two NAWIC awards for permanent soundscape artworks at Sydney Olympic Park and Civic in Canberra. Leber and Chesworth were awarded the Substation Contemporary Art Prize (2016), Gold Coast Art Prize (2014) and Screengrab International Media Arts Award (2014).

Public collections include the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of Western Australia, RMIT Sonic Arts Collection, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Gold Coast City Gallery, Mildura Arts Centre and Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

 

A full project history can be found at www.leberandchesworth.com