Jeffrey Gibson in The Future of Work: Parallel Economies: Art Gallery Burlington, Burlington, Ontario, CA

The Future of Work is a three-part exhibition series formed as sites of continual research on the labour markets, essential work, equity, and mobility. In collaboration with the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre (WAHC), the exhibitions are a process to examine how the pandemic has affected the labour markets and quality of life. The curatorial collective of Suzanne Carte, Srimoyee Mitra, Simranpreet Anand, and Adrienne Huard create three distinct platforms for conversations surrounding precarious labour, parallel economies, and labour futurisms.

At the AGB from August 26 – December 31, 2022, the Parallel Economies chapter explores emerging and established diverse economies, radical new forms of production and alternatives to the ways in which industrial sectors exploit resources and workers. The exhibition and program series features artists and cultural producers who work within solidarity economies, focus on mutual aid, actively work against competitive forms of growth, and who formulate anti-capitalist methods and strategies around worker ownership, peer-to-peer, gift economies, cooperatives, community-governance, financial justice, and climate justice reform, including Justseeds, Christina Battle, Jeffrey Gibson, GUDSKUL, Works-in-Progress, Derya Akay, Gendai Gallery, Jen Delos Reyes & June Ahn, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Chandra Melting Tallow, & Tania Willard, and community members such as the art and craft guilds of the region, local gardeners, historians, and restaurants, as well as the Burlington Public Library, The Pink Project, and Brock University’s Department of Labour Studies


.