Leonard Suryaja

Chicago, Illinois / Tulsa, Oklahoma
Portfolio

Leonard Suryajaya is a queer Chinese-Indonesian immigrant artist and current Tulsa Artist Fellow. He constructs analog large-format photographic tableaux with his families across Indonesia, rural Oregon, Chicago, and Tulsa, staging belonging as labor, not birthright. 2024 Guggenheim Fellow, he is collected by the Art Institute of Chicago, monograph forthcoming.

Project: Parting Gift - Spectral Gift

Parting Gift - Spectral Gift is a large-format analog photographic project, made with the families I was born into, married into, and chose. It began thirteen years ago in Indonesia, where photography became my way of staying present across the distance immigration imposed: weddings, illness, aging, the labor of caretaking. As my life took root in America, Parting Gift closes as my gift to Indonesia, and Spectral Gift opens as my gift to America, made with in-laws in rural Oregon, chosen family in Chicago, and communities in Tulsa. It brings where I come from into contact with where I now belong.