Anna Gustafson: Object Lessons
February 3 - August 9, 2020
Project Space
As we deplete the earth’s resources to manufacture and power consumer products, we destroy ecosystems. When such objects are deemed obsolete, these pieces of our contemporary material culture are consigned to landfills and further continue the sequence of ecological devastation. In response to the destructive cycle of late capitalist consumer culture, Anna Gustafson began enshrouding discarded appliances in old, white linen; a manner historically used by many cultures to prepare the dead for burial. Intrigued by this ritual, the material problem solving, the physical, repetitive labour involved, and of course, the enveloped object’s transformation, Gustafson came to understand this process as a way to individuate each item, and to honour the destruction necessary to make and power them. For this installation of Object Lessons, Gustafson includes the ubiquitous leaf blower. Once disruptors in our neighbourhoods, they now float mutely through their new context of decommissioned remote controls.
Presented in partnership with The New Gallery.
