Falsework, curated by Mitch Kenworthy, is a collaboration between artists Simon Grefiel and kiyoshi. Guided by an ethos of care, support, and reciprocity, these artists privilege the act and process of making. Evidenced throughout their interdisciplinary practices are materials and techniques readily gleaned, appropriated, and misappropriated from the various trades and construction work they do to earn a living. For Simon and kiyoshi, artwork and the work around it are not discrete activities.
In this exhibition, kiyoshi shows a scaffold platform built out of two-by-fours and plywood that he has sawed, burned, and belt sanded into a beautiful index of time and labour. A utilitarian structure, it serves as both a means to hand artwork and a stage for a performance. A plywood wall, also built by kiyoshi, frames and supports an installation of Simon’s videos. Produced by Simon while working on a predominantly Filipino crew doing maintenance and fabrication on yachts in North Vancouver, they document the tedium, camaraderie, pleasure, and beauty of working, while equally reflecting on histories and dynamics of Filipino marine labour.
In grunt gallery’s media lab, the artists present an ode to the job-site break room. Provisional furniture, a TV, a casual display of artworks and texts by friends, co-workers, and collaborators creates a setting for rest and respite. Facilitating hangouts and conversations, this space emphasizes the relationships and community in which Simon and kiyoshi’s practices are invariably situated and sustained.
ABOUT:
Simon Grefiel is an artist whose work engages with ancient and colonial histories and practices from Southeast Asia and around the Pacific. Working with sculpture, found objects, drawings, and plant life, his explorations of language, dreams, spirits, familial stories and speculative narratives propose new ways of experiencing the supernatural realm and material universe. Grefiel is a Waray-Waray speaker born and raised in Tacloban City, Philippines and currently lives on the unceded traditional territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. His work has been exhibited and screened at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Ground Floor Art Centre, and Libby Leshgold Gallery in Vancouver, and Gallery TPW in Toronto, ON.
Visit Grefiel’s Instagram page here:
kiyoshi is a Japanese Canadian artist living and working on the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories, colonially known as Vancouver, British Columbia. His practice encompasses architecture, performance, woodworking, and writing. Community is central to his way of working and being, something he attributes to having spent his formative years growing up in cooperative housing.
Visit kiyoshi’s Instagram page here:
instagram.com/k._yo_sh.__ijiji/
Mitch Kenworthy maintains a painting practice that is vested in the daily rhythms and processes of studio work, engaging in writing and more recently, curation as adjacent modes of inquiry into doing, making, and working. He has shared texts, shown paintings, and contributed in an organizational capacity to various artist-led projects and initiatives in and around so-called Vancouver, where he resides as an uninvited guest on the unceded and stolen lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh.