Lull
April 4 - May 9, 2020
Latitude 53106 Street
Edmonton, AB, Canada
Karen Kraven’s exhibition Lull has arrived at Latitude 53 in the midst of an unprecedented moment in our recent history, where issues of labour, production and visibility are immensely vital topics to consider. At this moment, the outbreak of COVID-19 has put much of the global economy on pause, and we will emerge from this pandemic in the throes of a global recession.
Kraven has been concerned with issues of production and the body’s refusal to work throughout her practice, pulling back the curtain on the garment workers (the vast majority of which are women) who work at the very margin of visibility, and whose revolutionary actions in the 1930’s broke the spell of production cycles.
When the wheels of production stop, be it through intentional acts of protest or through unexpected environmental forces, how do we reconsider the shape and value of our labour?
Through her research, Kraven questions what it means to interrupt production, and how to start working again, for the better. The work in Lull evokes both the presence and absence of the body, and points to the instability of the body itself: interrogated, exhausted and disappearing. What does it mean to stop producing? What are the political and societal implications of doing so?
Kraven’s specific use of denim creates a connection to Edmonton’s famous Great West Garment company, and the history of denim as a rugged utilitarian fabric worn by workers. At this moment in time, it is the role of the often overlooked and under-appreciated workers whose essential labour is finally being recognized and understood.
Kraven’s Lull has arrived at a strange time. The need for social distancing has already vastly changed the current social order, and it will inevitably change the way that this work is seen. Latitude 53 will be closed to the public when this exhibition opens; much of the experience will be relegated through online and written means.
What does it mean for this work to be installed in a gallery that may not ever be open to the public?
Artists and cultural workers are often under intense pressure to be productive; our livelihoods are built on uncertain foundations. Lull creates an environment of interrupted labour made visible. The exhibition asks us to reconsider the value of our labour and to seek out the faces and voices of those whose hands have woven the material of our world, often for no recognition at all.