Friday #ArtCrush: Aaron Moore

Right now I’m really interested in Broomberg and Chanarin, Walid Ra’ad, Taryn Simon and Thomas Demand as well as Martin Creed, although his work isn’t mainly photographic.

What subject matter do you tend to spend the most time working on?

I’m really interested in geography, history and issues of representation within images so I find myself going back to the history and landscape of Northern Ireland (where I’m from) and The Troubles, and I enjoy working with material I can pull from that.

Aaron Moore, Star Wars #2, 2016

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You work often with found and/or archival images, what draws you to those objects and what makes you want to use them?

I think it’s that there are so many associations that already exist within those images, and I find it far more satisfying to reuse an image, and work with whatever it provides me than to try and invent my own, I actually don’t take a lot of photographs at all.

How do you think using archival images or text in your art practice challenges or broadens notions of photography?

For me it’s more about shifting contexts around photography, I think archival images and photographs with text are indisputably photography, I’m just not too sure what a photograph is at the moment.

Much of the subject matter you use in your work, and in the found images and materials you use can been seen and interpreted as political. Do you see yourself as a political artist? What do you believe or see as the line between being a political artist and using politics in your work?

I believe my work is political, but only as political as every other kind of art object; I’m not necessarily trying to push any kind of political statement onto a viewer, but I enjoy using politics as a subject and it’s important for me to critique certain politics, and make that critique available to others.

Aaron Moore, Star Wars #1, 2016

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Do you work in any other mediums or do you blend photography with other mediums?

I work with found objects quite a bit, I also work in video sporadically and I’ve recently started making sculptures.

What is the value of being able to blend photography with other art mediums? How do you think that changes viewers experiences?

I try to use whatever medium I’m working with in a kind of utilitarian way in order to articulate my ideas, I’ll use sculpture, video or readymades if what I want to express can’t be expressed in photography, it definitely has the ability to change a viewers experience but that really depends on the object/medium and its function within whatever I’m doing.

What body of work are you working on right now?

I’m working on my thesis work right now which I’m calling Diverted Traffic, I’m basically taking around six different issues that come up around the history of The Troubles in N.I. and rethinking and reinterpreting them in a particular way.

Aaron Moore, Untitled, 2016

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Where do you foresee your career path going? Who would you like to work with in the future?

I have no idea, I’d like to continue to try show my work, and the goal is to be able to sustain myself and live comfortably through my art practice, but I’m not too sure about how I’m going to get there right now. In my ideal world I’d love to work with Broomberg and Chanarin, Martin Creed and lots of artist working in Toronto right now.

Are their any specific OCAD U Faculty who have influenced your work? A specific discipline or course?

There have been lots! Nick Pie and Simon Glass have really helped me develop what I do conceptually, as well as Jean-Paul Kelly, Jeff Tutt, and Lee Henderson, there’s lots of great people working in that building.

What is one piece of advice you would give to someone starting out in photography?

I get stressed out a lot, so I would say relax !