Slow Down & Resist

Themed Portfolio Exchange organized by Jamie-Lee Girodat and Myken McDowell

Description

Every day we wake up, we have a list of things that need doing. Jobs we need to be at, messages that need answering, items we need to buy—places where our energy needs to go; all with fluctuating, competing levels of importance. The steady rise of hashtags like #nevernotworking and words like adulting intimate that adulthood is less a state of being than a sequence of constant actions. Social media has codified this position, making it almost inescapable. Even acts of so-called self-care—activities we do in our leisure time—have turned into a form of work. The images we produce in our downtime can be a way to advertise ourselves—our virtuous eating habits, our rigorous workout routines, our learned bedtime reading practices. But it is no secret to any of us that striving to look as perfectly healthy, carefree, productive and competent as we appear online can impede our ability to feel so. Almost everyone is tired. In her book Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, Anne Helen Petersen calls burnout “our base temperature.” 

How do we resist the systems that encourage burnout? What does it mean to care, genuinely, for ourselves and others in an economy defined by precarity?

In a world where the production of perfect images is often immediate, art—and printmaking in particular—can be an act of care, a way to challenge the persistent demand of the hamster wheel. Printmaking forces the practitioner to slow down, to spend time with the image they are making. The practitioner is probably making these images in a print shop, where they are likely negotiating space (and spending time with) other image-makers. There is a ritualized set-up and takedown aspect, with a lot of waiting involved. The images produced are seldom perfect. Cultivating careful attention develops a tacit knowledge that allows one to experience fuller, richer ways of being and creating. This portfolio seeks artists working in any print medium whose work considers how this type of attention, this slowness, can be a form of resistance.

About the organizers

Jamie-Lee Girodat completed a BFA at the University of Lethbridge and an MFA in Printmaking at the University of Alberta. Her interest in health, ethics and misinformation informs her blobby practice in print media, drawing, and animation. She has presented work nationally and internationally and has received various accolades in the arts. Currently, she is exploring the Canadian east coast and is working as an Assistant Professor in Print and Open Media at Mount Allison University for the year.

Myken McDowell is a visual artist and educator. She received a BFA from Concordia University and an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Alberta. Full of questions about memory, place, and their influence on one another, her artwork has been widely exhibited and earned numerous scholarships and awards. She teaches, prints, and sometimes waters the plants at the Society of Northern Alberta Printmakers (SNAP) in Edmonton.

Participants

Akimichi Koga, Alex Linfeild, Andrew Thorne, Dawoon Jung, Jamie-lee Girodat, Jaquelee Chit Yu Chau, Kate Baillies, Kev Liang, Madeline MacKay, Myken McDowell, Phoebe Todd-Parrrish, Sarah McDermott, Shelbey Charlesworth & Kellen Spencer (collaborative print), Tracy Wormsbecker, Xi Jin

Hours

10am-5pm Monday-Friday

Reception

5-6:30pm Thursday October 13

Location

Folk Hall

University of Akron

Wearing face coverings and being up-to-date on Covid-19 vaccinations are strongly recommended at this location.