The Employee & H9 Meeting Notes: July 27, 2022

Hi Josh and Lauren,

Thanks for such an informative and engaging discussion last week. It was deeply appreciated! Lauren, it is H9 practice to share our meeting notes, so please find below our meeting notes from July 27, 2022. As always, please let us know if you have any questions.

Stay cool/hydrated + talk soon,

mark

Next steps:

• While waiting on grant news, start researching printing/printers

• Lauren will wrap up the two essays that are already in-hand and share with H9

• End of August: 2 essays with intertextual samples, the 3-way conversation (excerpt), the first-person narrative + sample images

• H9 to discuss with Max about auto-detecting content to block

• Early January 2023: all content due

• H9 & Josh to meet again August 9 (booked)

Discussion:

• Josh: ███ █████ ██████ █████ █████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ████ ████ ███ ████████ ███████

• Lauren: It does help making a differentiation between the performance and the work, but we will be going with The Employee

• Josh: Right now, the work that will be manifested will be two sibling public-facing devices: a website and a book. The website will be the project archive. One of the issues with the material I amassed from the project was that it was visually all over the map. It was a jumble of other not particularly nice-looking documents. Instead I’ve archived every single email connected to the project. About 1,500 emails. The website will be a timeline of the project and those correspondences. 

• Josh: None of the content of the grants will be shown. They’ve circulated already within the sphere of the granting process.

• Farah: What's the volume of all the paperwork that you’re not including?

• Josh: It’s endless

• Lauren: I’m not a maximalist. But there’s so much work that’s happened behind the scenes here, and that’s part of the work. But looking back at it now, the scale, even just distributing a book of that size, it would be physically prohibitive.

• Josh: Because the medium was so strong by everything being remote and being closed, it was already all digital. I’ve realized that everyone involved in the project has faced some kind of mental health crisis. One of the core issues at stake in the project is this invasion of our personal life of work, and the lack of separation. This lack of boundary was definitely exacerbated by COVID. So it makes sense to then publish everyone’s emails; showing the scope of burnout. Endless communication. I want to include this in the scope of this publication, rather than just framing it in the product of the performance I set out to make.

• Josh: The texture of this project is so well articulated within the emails. Email timeline would be the website. We were thinking of having QR codes in the book to link between the two.

• Lauren: What excited me about the project is how this book could exist as a record of The Employee, but also a collection of texts reflecting on art and labour in this moment; there are interlocked purposes; as a monograph, a reader, and a document of the performance.

• Lauren: There will be two introductions; Josh has contributed an artist’s narrative; LaPorte’s essay (7,000 words) is incredibly in-depth research on artist-run centres in Canada and the increasingly neoliberal funding of art in Canada; Vishmidt’s essay is a shorter text (3,000 words approx); then there’s two newer contributors; Dana Kopel around labour organizing in contemporary art…  There will also be an interview with Josh, Teresa, and Camille

• Lauren: We’re thinking of a maximum of 30 images. Images that explain the text, rather than images that exist as works of art. Interspersed within the text. We’re thinking soft cover. The size we really like is 6x9 inches. 

• Lauren: I have very little expertise in graphic design and I’m not very precious about it. We’re hoping for something very unornamented. If there are design features, hopefully they will serve a purpose. I think the level of the material will require a lot of room to breathe.

• Josh: We’re dealing with a lot of stuff that’s already been mediated online.

• Josh: I’m not sure whether or not the grant I applied for for this project should be on the website or in the publication?

• Lauren: I think that should go into the publication.

• Lauren: Yes, we don’t need to replicate that bureaucracy aesthetic, but we can reference it.

• Lauren: Timeline: published with Art Met and Forest City Gallery. Dana’s essay will come in the fall. Sébastian’s text will come in December. That will hopefully be the last piece. Then publish early 2023. 

• Josh: We’re looking at printing 400 copies. I put in a Canada Council application for printing. I’ll hopefully know by the end of August. 

• Farah: Think about who you will want to handle the printing (Josh and Lauren will do some math on printing location vs. shipping costs)

• Farah: Is there a particular event that the in-hand date is based on?

• Josh: We are hoping/planning on doing a launch with Art Metropole. But the deadline is still aspirational. There’s no point in imposing a deadline if it affects quality/content.

• Josh: I’d like to do both the publication and the website with you. They’d launch together.

• Lauren: I’ll be responsible for keeping the writers on deadline. That kind of chasing work is on me.

• Farah: Is there a sense, broad strokes, of budget?

• Josh: Production budget will be circa 10k (printing and design), but I hope it can be larger; this is what I can commit to without additional funding

• Farah: If ⅓ of this goes to printing, I think we can do this

• Josh: If I don’t get the funding, we could just print in black-and-white; these are decisions we can make at the end of August when I know more about funding

• Farah: It will then probably take about 2–3 weeks of dealing with printers and figuring out printing costs

• Lauren: How do you propose an identity? Do you need all the material first?

• Farah: We need some of the material. Enough to understand the heart of it. Probably have a few more conversations about intention. Bring in our art director (Louis). It would be great to see a few of the images you’ll be including. Things that are representative of the different components of text. 

• Josh: Photos will most likely be screenshots of the 3-hour performance by Camille-Zoé + photographs of some of the content/documentation

• Josh: Lauren and I will think on which images can go where within the text.

• Lauren: Yes, on my next edits, I’ll start indicating where we can source images. We’ll also have to think of image credits.