Aaron Seeto – Bio

“By resurrecting the daguerreotype, Seeto is able to work at extreme ends of a spectrum where conceptually the archive is re-presented via an object of considerable beauty and continuing fascination. At the same time it addresses the somewhat misleading notion of permanence in the face of changing times, contexts and technologies.”

David Broker, National Portrait Gallery catalogue 2010.

Aaron Seeto makes alternate historical positions and experiences visible through an exploration of archives, family photo albums and photographic records. In recent bodies of work Fortress and Oblivion, Seeto has utlilised the daguerreotype, one of the earliest and most primitive photographic techniques, to highlight the malleability of narratives within archive records. Not only is the chemical process itself highly toxic and temperamental but the daguerreotype’s mirrored surface means the image appears as both positive and negative, depending on the angle of view. For Seeto, this mutability captures the essence of our experience of history and memory, reflecting how images degrade, how stories are formed and privileged, how knowledge and history are written.

In Fortress Seeto presents a series of daguerreotype photographs that use images of the artists' own body connecting in physically impossible ways. Body parts are mirrored and repeated in absurd combinations, perhaps suggesting that ‘self’ is as slippery as a concept as ‘truth’. Fortress is based on questioning how to articulate or write a history of day-to-day experiences, especially those experiences that exist outside of the cultural and social mainstream. Who controls and what is controlled? Who protects and what or who is protected?

For his ongoing series Oblivion Seeto sourced details from images of the Cronulla riots - beachside riots around race and territory) of 2005 found on the internet. In reproducing these as daguerrotypes he seeks less to represent the incident than to look at how it was reported, understood and remembered. The instability of the virtual information found online is echoed in the photographic process.

Aaron Seeto studied at Wollongong University and in 2006 he received an Australia Council grant to attend the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York City. He has exhibited in contemporary art spaces in Australia, New Zealand, New York and Europe, including the Robert McDougall Gallery Christchurch, New Zealand as part of Scape Biennial 2004; Lokaal01 in Breda, The Netherlands, 2007; Gallery Korea, New York City, 2006; the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2005; the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, 2009; Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, 2010; and the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra 2010. He is the Director of the Asia-Australia Arts Centre/Gallery 4A, Sydney. Curating is a key element of his practice. Recent curatorial projects include News from Islands an Asia-Pacific survey at the Campbelltown Arts Centre (2007); Otherworldsothernews, Starkwhite, Auckland NZ (2007) and Primavera at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2006).