Ian Weaver’s work is interdisciplinary in format and narrative in content and his work utilizes a variety of media such as drawing/collage, sculpture, installation and film, which act as metaphors for “fracture.” Weaver is interested in how we as individuals and communities, construct our own identities, histories, and memories. Weaver stated how we do all of this through our monumentalization and the objects that we construct and archive. Overall, his work communicates the concept that, “Memory is fractured, non-linear, and disparate in nature; the experience of ‘recall’ is a dissociative one.” He wants the viewer to, “question the constructions we routinely undertake through our lives.” The artist talked about several of his projects: Documents (2004-2006), Black Bottom History …show more content…
His first project was something he worked on collaboratively with his mother to find any documentation that was relative to his family's history in their community (which had been erased). This project was titled, Documents (2004-2006), and was a series of 10 document paintings. My favorite piece from this series is called, Letter (2006), which was a letter from grandmother to his mother. He described the letter as “cold and formal,” like the documents that they could find. Weaver ended this project after two years because he didn’t want to be known for any one specific style of work. When looking back on the series, he decided that didn’t want to become the document painter. He felt done with it when he first saw the series of paintings together and didn’t like how the government played a role in destroying their family history and the history of the community around his family at the time. He wanted to get away from the negativity attached to the meaning of the series and he was upset that his family didn’t really have a family