A metaphoric feature of Slofa that has not so far been talked about or noticed or mused over is it's skin-like function in covering sitting surfaces that are maybe not so contiguous or new or pretty. As a furniture cover it designates a sitting surface different from what is under or inside of it. Wearing all of the little stitches and knots and minor mistakes and beautiful creations of Slofemists embroiderers over several years it is not just the thing that is looked at, its skin-like function is now one of its features.

Or at least that is one of the meanings that comes from its inclusion inside of the exhibition, All membranes are porous, which is now presented at Kamloops Art Gallery. This exhibition, curated by Charo Neville, brings together works by six Canadian artists that explore dynamic conditions and phenomena familiar to human embodiment --the experiences of living as a body. In her curatorial exhibition walkabout, which preceded the exhibition opening last week, Neville led the crowd in breathing exercises and proudly described how this exhibition would be her last professional output before her own swollen body would deliver an expected baby. Fittingly, this is a project that demands that the viewer use more than just the eyes. The body is expected to maneuver around precarious foam, ceramic and felt sculptures (Zoe Kreye and Luanne Martineau), sit through psychedelic eye-popping effects (Jeremy Shaw), and experience diverse video installation spaces, where the way one's body is positioned or held, is part of the video's effect (Jeremy Shaw, Pascal Grandmaison, Sarah Anne Johnson, and Margaret Dragu). The work of the Slofemists forms surfaces for that kind of altered or enhanced viewing in Margaret Dragu's The Library Project. 

Here are some photos of how Slofemists participants Rebecca Pasch and Lois Klassen experienced the exhibition and opening events. Excerpts of the exhibition notes that describe the Slofemists work is here - Download KamloopsArtGallery_Dragu001.

Congratulations to artists, Margaret Dragu, Pascal Granmaison, Sarah Anne Johnson, Zoe Kreye, Luanne Martineau, Jeremy Shaw, and curator, Charo Neville, and everyone at Kamloops Art Gallery!

Semiotext(s)'s new publication by Simone Weil inspired Sunday's SlofemistS. We wondered if the entrenched economic inequity based on gender, from stories in our families' histories, could be understood as what Weil describes as an unexamined and highly desired "truth" --the stuff of religions, and adherents to political parties. In "Note on the Abolition of All Political Parties" (first published in French in 1957, and now available in English as part of the Semiotext(e) Whitney Series), Weil decides that political parties, like religious groups, are incapable of critically examining the truth... "how can one desire truth without knowing anything about it?" (20). We wondered if her logic could be applied like this: how can one desire some "truth" (like inequitable distribution of family assets based on gender, for example) when one does not thoroughly examine the justice of this truth on all of the people involved?

Weil's essay ends: "Almost everywhere --and often for purely technical problems--the operation of taking sides, of taking position for or against, has replaced the obligation to think." (30)

 Other SolfemistS highlights from Sunday:

Lexie Owen is continuing her deconstruction / reconstruction project called For All The Boys I've Loved Before, that was featured in the graduate exhibition at Emily Carr University of Art + Design at the beginning of this month.

Kriss Boggild dug into her archive and brought along three issues of Makara: The Canadian Magazine by Women for People circa 1975-78. Coming out of an office on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, Makara's editorial policy was "'Canadian general interest alternative magazine by women for people.'... some art, some fiction/poetry, some politics, some humour, some health news, some children's features, some book reviews... We want to reflect the growing, moving, changing times, without making things appear impossibly dismal, because we believe in possibilities, and people who are working for new ideas, new approaches, new lifestyles. Do we sound fussy? We are!" (Vol 2, #4, page 10)

Jem Nobel brought a family story about the important but unacknowledged economic contribution that his mother had made in his extended family. He used the SlofemistS time and supplies to do his mending.

Margaret Dragu was completely delighted by the hazards the heavy weather had presented to her en route... I was so glad she made it!

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Kate Fletcher, a UK researcher of fashion and sustainability gave a public lecture at Emily Carr University this week. She is a proponent, and analyst, of alternative fashion systems. In particular, she advocates for something she calls “craft of use.” Fletcher believes that if we consider the properties of clothing –what we find necessary and beloved, as well as the skills that we need to make, re-make or maintain clothing, as well as the impact of our clothing decisions on others and the environment, we might be able to mitigate the fearsome global impact of the fashion industry.

Her story telling about the clothing trade in the UK (echoed around the middle class world, one assumes) is shocking. Over the last 10 years there has been a 26% reduction in the cost of clothes in the UK. This doesn’t mean that people have redirected their saved consumer dollars into other things (education, health, community development, arts & culture??) --instead, they have bought a greater quantity of –lesser quality—clothes! It is estimated that about 2 million tons of clothing are purchased annually in the UK; but only about 1 million tons are discarded. Which leads one to wonder, what kind of hoarders have people become? As one of the oldest industries, second only to food, clothing/fashion has one of the longest supply chains. The environmental and social impact of production is felt all along the way: from the production of the resources needed to make the fibers; to the transport of the materials in and out of textile and clothing processing facilities; to the garments’ appearance inside a complicated marketing system; to your closet; and eventually into your garbage bin or into yet another supply chain of clothing recycling processes (thrift stores, and eventually recycling facilities which turn the fibers into other textile products – such as shoddy). The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) estimates that in order to avoid a tripling of resource extraction by 2050, the developed world needs to cut consumption by a factor of 5 – about 80%. Fletcher made a convincing argument for the dire environmental implications of fashion and the urgent need to take on dramatic changes in how we cloth ourselves.

Unfortunately Kate Fletcher’s concept of “craft of use” is a complicated proposition that seems hard to pin down to concrete or realizable solutions. But, the outcomes of the concept can be very simple, and very beautiful. Her current research project called Local Wisdom is one such manifestation. It is a growing web archive of the experiences that people already possess for making individual pieces of clothing enduring and endearing. In this project, she asks participants to attend a photo shoot, in which they are asked to discuss and demonstrate the way their craft of use makes their objects more useable. The website is becoming populated with photos and stories that quote people who have modified out-of-shape items; or who share with other wearers wardrobe pieces that only get used ‘once in a blue moon’; or who have such commitment to a garment’s fit and function that they continually have replicas made each time the item becomes worn out.

By coincidence, the Vancouver-based performance artist, Margaret Dragu – none other than the Mending Aktion persona, just this week completed the video How To Be Old – Chapter 3: get thrifty !!! If you need a few practical “craft of use” lessons that anyone can take up, see Margaret Dragu on Vimeo.

Congratulations to Margaret Dragu on winning one of this year's prestigeous Governor-General's Awards in Visual Arts and Media. How great it is to see her long career of gestures and interventions, correspondences, conversations, dances, bike rides, fictions -- in a word, AKTIONS-- recognized by the Canadian art world. Margaret has ammassed a vocabulary of art actions that describe to me a way of integrating creative experiments into a daily life and community. Living on the shoreline of an enormous land, she coreographs her body and the bodies of those around her to describe the conditions that we experience as individuals and as a collective.

Thank you for all of your encouragement, and your inspiration Margaret. And thank you for the mending aktions... sewing with me.

Read more about Margaret Dragu's Governor-General's Award here.