Unfinished Conversation: Reconstructing the Invisible: Aida Šehovic in collaboration with Leonard Correa

A traumatic event imprints an indelible mark on the human psyche, with the scene of the tragedy becoming the catalyst that forever compels us to recall an event. For those directly affected by violence, what remains is the persistent memory of what once was. For everyone else, life moves on. This is true for regions devastated by war, or neighborhoods inundated by violent crime. For the Bosnian-born artist Aida Šehovic and local forensic investigator Leonard Correa, specific places in Bosnia and California respectively have been defined by acts of violence.

Their collaborative project Unfinished Conversations: Reconstructing the Invisible was developed during Šehovic’s residency at GCAC last fall and explores the similarities in their process of dealing with personal memories of these sites. For Aida, an apartment her family was persecuted from during the brutal war in her home country in the early 1990’s; for Leonard, locations in Santa Ana he has encountered during the course of his work that continue to impact him as he drives by them almost daily. The experience of trauma is an experience of silence, yet each act of violence imprints an indelible mark that remains distinct despite the passage of time.

Aida Šehovi? was born and raised in Banjaluka, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1977. Using the mechanism of social engagement, her work seeks to reconcile histories of loss, trauma and violence that peoples and nations have suffered and perpetrated on each other. Since 2006, Šehovic’s participatory nomadic monument “Što Te Nema?” has been traveling to different locations each year, including Istanbul, New York, The Hague, Stockholm and Toronto. Her group exhibitions include Queens International 2013, Queens Museum (2013); EAF13, Socrates Sculpture Park (2013); and The Typhoon Continues and So Do You, Flux Factory (2011). Šehovic was an artist-in-residence at the Grand Central Art Center (2014) and a participant at LMCC’s Process Space Residency (2015). A recipient of the Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park (2013) and the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship (2007), Šehovic earned her BA from the University of Vermont (2002) and her MFA from Hunter College (2010).

Leonard Correa, born in 1961 and raised in Santa Ana, California has served as a Forensic Investigator with the Santa Ana Police Department for 25 years. Responsible for documenting ongoing acts of violence, photography became a vital tool that provided balance between his work and art photography. Over time, the two began to merge and the result is often an amalgamation; a constant endeavor to bring order to chaos. His group exhibitions include Darkroom Gallery, Essex Junction, VT (2013); Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle (2013); Urban Landscapes, 1650 Gallery, Los Angeles (2013); Umbrella Arts Center, NY (2010); Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh (2010); Grand Central Art Center (2008); Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle (2006, 2007); Target Gallery-Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, VA (2005)