Ongoing, collective effort

Installation. Gouache wall text, ASL vlog by Sage Lovell, take-away designed by Ingrid Forster, and collective creation of fragrance-free access. 2021

Between two large freestanding mirrors is handwritten wall text that reads "the possibilities of care as a sculpture." The gallery is in installation mode, with tools strewn about. The photographer, curator Leila Timmons in reflected in the mirrors that are part of Carmen Papalia's artwork. A snippet of Vanessa Dion Fletcher's enlarged quillwork can also be glimpsed in the mirror.
A peek behind the scenes of the installation in progress taken by Leila Timmons, who is reflected in the two large, freestanding mirrors that are a part of Carmen Papalia’s contribution to Undecimals. There is a glimpse of Vanessa Dion Fletcher’s quillwork. Between the mirrors is a handwritten wall text: “the possibilities of care as a sculpture.” A garbage can, ladder and tools and are scattered throughout the gallery.

This project has a long, descriptive title:

Ongoing, collective effort and learning in appreciation and humble recognition of bodily complexity, permeability, and vulnerability, as well as the interdependent nature of our survival, our thrival

OR

Fragrance-free sculpture piece (in which we imagine and co-create toxicant-free access and fragrance-freedom as a fragile, dynamic, invisible sculpture made possible by the efforts of everyone who is present and everyone who maintains this space)

What support and resources do you need to make this access work possible? What values do you draw on to help make the labour of creating access meaningful and sustainable?

Like all access work, creating fragrance-free or low-toxicity access is an ongoing and iterative process. Unlike all access work, attention and effort is required of everybody who is present—not solely an accessibility coordinator or a department within an institution. 

In recognition of the harms to human and more-than-human life caused by toxicants that are ubiquitous in so many products, it is not uncommon for institutions to have fragrance-free policies in place. However they are rarely enacted in a meaningful way. This project invites everyone who visits, works in, and volunteers at the gallery to help co-create a fragrance-free space. 

I have been imagining the creation of fragrance-free access as the creation of a dynamic, fragile, invisible sculpture, that is as interdependent as our bodies and possible only through collective effort. For Ongoing, collective effort I invite others to think of it in this way as well, and to reach out if they have questions, need support, or are experiencing a barrier or access conflict.

Commissioned for Undeliverable, curated by Carmen Papalia and organized by Leila Timmons and Sean Lee for The Robert MacLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, ON) and Tangled Art + Disability (Tkaronto/Toronto, ON). With thanks to Whitney Mashburn.

Sincere thanks and appreciation to all the staff and visitors to the galleries that contributed to this project and made it possible.