ABOUT ME

My name is Rachel Leckman and I am an artist trained in museum collection practices. I am originally from Alexandria, VA and have been living in NYC on and off since 2015. I received my Undergraduate degree in Fine Arts with minors in Visual Studies and Museum and Curatorial Studies from Parsons School of Design in 2019, and my Masters in Museum Studies from New York University in 2021. In my art and design practice there is a foundation in taxonomy and accessibility. Making information, stories, and point of views interpretable to the masses, is a passion of mine whether it be focusing on my personal interests or important topics like technology or colonialism in museums.

Growing up right outside of Washington, DC has shaped my views of the visual world and how information can be displayed to sway the direction of viewers in terms of news and beliefs. With a background in photographic history my design path has been based in storytelling and has expanded into the playfulness of fiction through the exploration of proximity, arrangement, and digital manipulation. Designers are translators of the world and transmit a message through their work.

The intersection of imagery and text, my art practice reflects my organizing and reorganizing of memory, life, and culture. Taking great inspiration from historian Aby Warburg and his Mnemosyne Atlas, the power of arrangement and context has the power to break reality and reshape it and create conclusions and connections. The idea of what is real is a common theme in my work. A major focus in my art is human’s relationship to nature. Through natural history model-making, stained glass, collage, and photography the analysis of experience and retained information is being explored.