Leslie Foster: Experimental Film and Installations
H. Leslie Foster II
In this profile series, Revry is highlighting authentic contributors to the LGBTQ media and entertainment community. We ask questions to find out who they are and where they are going in the future. The questions remain the same but the answers tell their unique story. It’s time to explore and celebrate true representation beyond the limits of Hollywood.
H. Leslie Foster II is an artist based in Los Angeles (occupied Gabrielino-Tongva land) whose work folds experimental film into multi-sensory installations to create contemplative ecologies and pocket universes that explore Black and queer futurity through a lens of dream logic. His love for storytelling is inspired by a childhood spent in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Berrien Springs, Michigan. Much of his practice is rooted in community-building through art-making and collaboration. If he had to summarize his art practice in a single sentence, it would probably be, “I’m trying to praise the mutilated world and practice resurrection.” Somewhere in that collision of poems by Adam Zagajewski and Wendell Berry is the frustrating, beautiful element he’s trying to reach with his work, which serves as a gentle invitation into turbulent space and the beautifully strange. Leslie’s pieces often utilize ritual and movement, seeking to embody unnamed and undefined emotions while challenging viewers to mine their own discomfort. His work has been exhibited internationally and includes two solo shows. The first, RITUAL CYCLE, was created with designer and composer Scott Arany and filmmaker Heather Dappolonia, who together formed the collective Nomad Solstice. RITUAL CYCLE debuted in March 2016, followed by a second solo installation, 59, for which he shot 11 films in 11 months with 11 different collaborators, which debuted in May 2017. 59 represented the completion of a year-long art residency with the non-profit art collective Level Ground, where he now serves as the Director of Art Residency. Leslie is a founding member of the collective Museum Adjacent, which was formed by members of the 2019 Torrance Art Museum FORUM residency cohort. He’s currently pursuing an MFA in Design Media Arts at UCLA and is still trying to fulfill his life-long dream of running away with a band of sea-faring vagabond artists.
What are you best known for?
I had to think about this question for a while, but I suppose if I'm thinking about the work I've created, my four channel video installation HEAVENLY BROWN BODY is what most people have encountered, whether it's through museum and gallery installations, film festivals–including Outfest, where it won a Grand Jury award–or through Revry. If I'm answering the question about my personal life, I hope it's that I'm kind and a good friend, but if I'm being honest, it's probably the fact that I've been to Burning Man 8 times.
What is the first thing you directed?
I transferred to art school as a junior to study film in 2003 and got to direct my first Super 16mm short in 2004. The piece was called WHISPER and it was your typical moody, poetic first project. I ended up shooting it in an abandoned warehouse on campus with a group of friends. I managed to get a beautiful dress by goth couture company Heavy Red donated for my actress, Jenna and dove in without knowing what I was doing at all. It was pretty magical! The first time I looked through the ground class of the camera (an Aaton A-Minima for you film geeks) and heard the film whirring past my ear, I was absolutely hooked.
What are you working on that no one knows about yet?
I'm currently working on my grad school thesis, which will be revealed to the public at a gallery opening in LA on May 12th. I'm not at a place where I'm ready to share all the exact details, but I'm creating an installation that explores the Black, queer body as a site of pleasure, possibility, and futures. I'm really interested in how ritual and pleasure open doors to an expansive radical Black imagination, pulling away from linear Western/heteronormative time, allowing us to dream our way into better worlds.