It leaks (go to work) - Joanne Dawson

As a continuation of her interest in constructing playful alternative histories, for It leaks (go to work), Joanne Dawson examines the material traces that archival objects carry and how histories of resistance are reinterpreted, acquire new relevance and can reorient contemporary thinking. Drawing on her interests in object fictions, subverting of craft processes and unearthing abstracted narratives of the everyday, Dawson will produce a series of new works in response to a period of research in the historic collections of Glasgow Women’s Library and the Women’s Art Library, drawing together accounts of precarity from the two organisations in order to meditate on women's collective experience.

For It leaks (go to work), Dawson considers the processes of transformation which spaces occupied by women-led organisations undergo in order to be inhabited, which is widely documented in both archives, as a cipher for the collective labour required to sustain grass roots organisations. In making visible the communal nature of the maintenance work undertaken historically by these women’s groups, Dawson references the widespread undervaluing of reproductive labour, proposing that co-operation, shared responsibility and practices of commoning are necessary agents in the subsistence of women’s activism and have historically been a means of enacting radical support and protection within these communities.

Joanne Dawson is a Glasgow-based artist who was born in Sheffield in 1993. Her practice spans sculpture, large-scale installation and print. She studied Painting and Printmaking at The Glasgow School of Art between 2012 and 2015 and since then has appeared in and co-curated a number of exhibitions as well as working with performance collective Babaloose. Solo shows include Rousing (2018) at Slugtown, Newcastle; Watertight (2017) at Holmwood House, part of Glasgow Doors Open Days, Glasgow; An Accidental Sneeze (2017) at Good Press, Glasgow and Keep the Pavement Dry (2017) with Love Unlimited at VoidoidARCHIVE, Glasgow. Group shows include Reel Meal (2017) with Thank You Very Much at David Dale Gallery, Glasgow; ebc010 Calendar (2016) at East Bristol Contemporary, Bristol; MONO (2016) at Urg3l 3, Madrid and Apart together (2016) at The Telfer Gallery, Glasgow. joannedawson.co.uk

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Curated by Laura Plant

Exhibition continues until 21st October, open 12pm-6pm.

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The exhibition is kindly supported by Goldsmiths, Women's Art Library and Canopy.