Artists' Books

Workers of the World, Unite!

Today we're looking at two Artists' Books that speak to the theme of work. 'Cause when are the politics of labour not relevant?!

Let's start with Jessica Vaughn’s Depreciating Assets.

This book offers us a study on the alienating spatial conditions of modern-day office jobs. Vaughn’s collection of photos, writing, xeroxed images, and diversity training video stills, all work to conjure an acutely sensory experience for her readers: the buzz of fluorescent lights; the smell of old carpet tiles; the feeling of corrugated plastic; the colour pallet of government-grade stationary which, in its standardization, works to “limit choice…thereby ensuring visual and material consistency and the ironing out of difference.” This book shows us, rather than tells us, how modular architecture works to reinforce the capitalist notion that workers are disposable – replace the furniture, replace the worker! Vaughn speaks specifically to the process of invisibilization and exploitation of Black workers and workers of colour, asking “Do minimalist design gestures and open floor plans exist outside conditions of race, class and labor?”. After 129 pages of painstakingly illustrating her point, she answers simply “They don’t.”

Title: Depreciating Assets
Author: Jessica Vaughn
Call Number: V284 D47
Publisher: Printed Matter
Publication Date: 2021

Next up, Terra Poirier’s Non-Regular.

This book ought to be required reading for Emily Carr students, faculty, and staff. While the contents offer no surprises to non-regular faculty (i.e. sessionals and lecturers), I venture that the average student at Emily Carr knows very little about their instructors' conditions of employment. If you’re learning about the politics of labour in a theoretical way, say in your humanities classes, this book will compliment that theory by bringing to life actual lived realities that couldn’t be more relevant to your time here at Emily Carr. After all, the majority of classes are taught by non-regular faculty! Through testimonials and interviews – most of which are anonymous for fear of repercussion – alongside photographs and pinhole portraiture, Poirier maps out the realities of contract teaching: low wages, lack of job security, limited health coverage, inadequate work space, and an absence of recognition or support. As a member of the Emily Carr community, you have a stake in the politics of labour here – and for that reason, I urge you to pick up a copy of Non-Regular.

Title: Non-Regular: Precarious academic labour at Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Author: Terra Poirier
Call Number: P657 N66
Publisher: Unit/Pitt Projects
Publication Date: 2018