Precious objects performing non-precious tasks

Misbah Ahmed, Kuh Del Rosario, Wenting Li, Julie Moon, Chiedza Pasipanodya, and Kendra Yee.

Curated by Avalon Mott

February 21 - March 22 2026

What is your relationship to objects?

I am neither a minimalist nor maximist. I have objects in my life that I have collected or been given that carry history, meaning and memory that I feel disproportionately attached too. Some aren’t my aesthetic or even have any use, and yet I protect them as precious objects. In this, they are helpful but not helpful. They maintain a magical functionality where attention is pulled into them so that they can hold something; we can park thoughts, feelings and emotions in an object for them to carry. Objects can be a talisman for memory as they are quietly yet astutely recording materiality, collapsing time, and flattening environments in which they occupy. They possess symbols of language that are coded in a specific knowing, usually requiring the owne to translate the full breadth of their life force, but always keen to communicate in whispers.

The juxtaposition of this would be the gallery space, the ‘White Cube’, devoid of personality and meaning. When objects are placed in the White Cube, on a plinth per say, how does this shift your expectation of them? There is an inherent desire to understand when entering the White Cube which forces the object shape shifts into Art Object, an eccentric performer. They are asserted to be charged with extroverted
communication as they are always on and performing towards our expectations of them.

Precious objects performing non-precious tasks explores the push and pull of our expectation of objects presented in a gallery space. In this exhibition no work is hung on the wall, no work is suspended from the
ceiling, and no work is sitting on a plinth. Nothing in this exhibition is being supported, the work is all at rest. The works of Misbah Ahmed, Kuh Del Rosario, Wenting Li, Julie Moon, Chiedza Pasipanodya, and Kendra Yee still carry histories, meaning, and memories, and desire to communicate but perhaps they do so in a different frequency than one may expect.

The gridded floor provides a framework for the forms to communicate within, a connection point unifying varied conversations. It also informs the viewer that there is active participation required to be with the
objects. You must decide how to approach them as no clear path is provided. Your path may be different from the next viewers and that is ok. Be gentle, come closer, trust your intuition, these forms have
something to say to you even in rest.


_{Thank you to: Philip Ocampo for design, photo documentation, and install support; Alastair Martin for smoked tile frame fabrication; Wendy Tokaryk and Ed Bamiling from the Banff Centre; Fonderie Darling; Collection Desjardins; Ontario Arts Council; and Canada Council for the Arts.}