Art Metropole

#16927

Labour / Labeur

Editor

Nicole Burisch

Writer

Gabrielle Moser

Artists

Martine Syms, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Chantal Gibson, Tony Cokes, La Tanya S. Autry, and Natalie Asumeng

Leonard & Bina Ellen Art GalleryConcordia University

Price

$19.05

Date

2026

Publisher

Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery and Concordia University

Format

Catalogues

ISBN

978-2-924316-75-7

Size

21 × 26 × 1 cm

Length

128 pp

Genre

Activism, Black Art & Artists, Installation Art, Politics

Description

This publication accompanies the exhibition Labour, curated by Ingrid Jones and featuring the work of artists Natalie Asumeng, La Tanya S. Autry, Tony Cokes, Chantal Gibson, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Martine Syms. Designed by House9, the publication includes photographic and textual documentation, and an award-winning curatorial essay by Jones that provides context for each artwork and an in-depth discussion of the themes of the exhibition. It also includes a newly commissioned text by art historian Gabrielle Moser, based on her experiences with the exhibition in Toronto.

Inspired by Claudia Rankine’s scholarship on microaggressions in Citizen: An American Lyric and themes of perceptibility, Labour seeks to unveil the invisible labour of the colonized. The exhibition challenges societal racial biases through the lens of Blackness and Indigeneity, exploring, among other concerns, how unseen labour might be unburdened and shifted onto the dominant. The evocative works of Natalie Asumeng, La Tanya S. Autry, Tony Cokes, Chantal Gibson, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Martine Syms examine white supremacy’s manifestation in institutional power paradigms and its corrosive effects on Black and Indigenous people and people of colour (BIPOC). In so doing, this exhibition operationalizes and reveals unseen labour while activating alternative teachings from Black and Indigenous perspectives. Labour asks, what are the motivations for our inclusion in institutional spaces? Who has the right to tell our stories? What is our right to rage in the face of microaggressions and discriminatory acts? And how can we employ much-needed rest as a form of resistance? By reimagining how the colonized perceive, engage with, and ultimately challenge the forces that shape our world, Labour becomes a powerful site of defiance.