Mary Lemley is an artist, writer and filmmaker working with installation and performance. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she spent 7 years in NYC during which her exhibitions and performances included work in the New Museum and the Kitchen, as well as working with Colab (Collaborative Projects). She has lived and worked in London since 1984 where her exhibitions and projects have included These Fragments We have Shored Against Our Ruins (1992) which worked directly with the tides of the Thames and its 14 forgotten tributaries; Listening Grounds, Lost Acres(1994) with Graeme Miller which mapped 100 square miles of landscape in and around Salisbury through a bookwork, a sound installation and glass markers; and various versions of the ongoing My Life in Hackney Part One - in which she has systematically surveyed the contents of a Council flat in Hackney through digital photographs of 10,000 objects. This was most recently exhibited in Kettles Yard, Cambridge in Upside Down/Inside Out during August/September 2009. Lemley is currently in post-production on the film “something it is like to be. . . “ made in collaboration with her stepson who has autism and funded by the Wellcome Trust. The film provokes and questions our understanding of autism and art.
Since Novemeber 2009 she has been artist-in-residence at the HMS Ganges Museum in Suffolk as a part of Commissions East international arts programme called Fleet with Lead Artist Gavin Turk.