The Employee
The Employee was a year-long performance project that took place from Sept. 15, 2020 until Oct. 15, 2021. The work responded to the staffing conditions of the Forest City Gallery artist-run centre in London, Ontario, the operations of which are managed by a single staff member paid part-time hours. This operational deficit implicitly demands constant unpaid overtime to maintain the gallery's administration, funding, communications, and programming.
My artistic work was to shift this structural lack into visibility, by way of initiating a delegated performance that was enacted by hiring a supplementary worker who I paid by way of an arts grant. This worker-performer's job was to write funding applications on behalf of the gallery. The projected outcome of the work was potentially to increase the centre's operating budget such that they would be able to hire an additional staff member. This goal was not achieved. The performance of grant-writing was enacted by Camille-Zoé Valcourt-Synnott.
The project generated two forms of publication, also entitled The Employee: a book, which can be purchased through Art Metropole, and an email archive, which can be read at the following link.
The project was funded by The Canada Council for the Arts.
