Joshua Leon is an artist and writer. He received his PhD from the Royal College of Art, London, UK in 2023. In his writing and exhibition making Leon employs a theory of collapse within a broader examination of the lament as a critical space; exploring how archival remembrance, historical research, autobiography and memoir fall into each other. This approach examines the ways in which site, place and material bear witness, codify language and store personal and socio-historical memory. This methodical process is then imagined through presentations of poetic discourse, display, and knowledge production. Leon’s works manifest fluidly through a multitude of forms including writing, silence, music, stained glass, walks, reading, garments, documents and institutional intervention and alteration.

His first publication The Process, published by Mousse and Chisenhale Gallery, winner of the Emerging Art Foundation art writing prize, is the outcome of two years of writing and documenting his own research processes between 2022-2024, as he prepared for his first solo institutional exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery. The publication comprises original writing by Leon alongside archival material. Tracing history, memory and self across time and site, the text traverses locations including a synagogue in Bordeaux, an American bar in Vienna, and a veneer factory in London’s East End to reflect on the experiences of the Jewish diaspora in Europe, and contemporary Jewish life.

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