Benjamin Freedman: Positive Illusions
Canadian artist Benjamin Freedman employs CGI to craft a mesmerizing visual narrative that reimagines a 1999 family road trip to Maine. Drawing from childhood memories, Freedman constructs dreamlike scenes that hover between authenticity and invention, suggesting how memory and imagination are often indistinguishable. His reassembled visions of diners, swimming pools, and picnic stops conjure a rich sensory world, echoing the textures, sounds, and atmospheres of a bygone summer.Through these digitally rendered vignettes, Freedman examines how technology enables us to reenter and reinterpret the past, resulting in imagery that is at once intimate and eerily universal. The boundary between individual memory and collective longing becomes porous, giving rise to a personal yet archetypal visual language steeped in emotion and reminiscence. By using digital media to reconstruct nostalgic scenes, Freedman not only reflects on the mutability of memory but also pushes against the boundaries of traditional photography. Includes an essay by Cat Lachowskyj.
About the Author
Benjamin Freedman is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans photography, video, and sculpture. His creative approach often involves deep archival and historical inquiry, through which he explores layered and contested narratives. Treating photographic research as a kind of speculative archaeology, Freedman embraces reinterpretation and disruption as tools for uncovering new, restorative perspectives on the past. His visual language frequently draws from science fiction, horror, and other genre-based aesthetics, pushing the boundaries of documentary practice into more imaginative and immersive realms.
Freedman published his first photography book in 2015 and has since exhibited widely throughout the Toronto region, including recent shows at Pumice Raft Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery, The Image Centre, 8eleven Gallery, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, and Division Gallery. His work has also been presented internationally, notably at the Aperture Foundation in New York.
In addition to his artistic practice, Freedman has contributed to the cultural landscape of Toronto through roles on the steering committees for the Toronto Art Book Fair and the SNAP! Live Auction, as well as through his involvement with The Patch Project, a public art initiative that enlivens the city’s urban environment. From 2015 to 2021, he served as Artistic Project Manager at the CONTACT Photography Festival, a major non-profit organization dedicated to advancing photography through its annual festival and year-round programming. During his tenure, Freedman played a key role in shaping the public installation program, which reimagines urban space through large-scale photographic works, challenging viewers to reconsider how art intersects with the fabric of daily life.
