At the Table, Otherwise explores the discursive possibilities of archives as records of the labour of exhibition making. The project expands on the 2018 exhibition Qui parle ? / Who Speaks?, which brought together recently acquired artworks that “problematized, in different ways and from different viewpoints, the authorial status of the contemporary artist, their discursivity, and the multiple positions each adopts as a speaking subject in their practice” (see

Ways of Thinking text (en) ). In addition to the artworks, curator Katrie Chagnon presented materials documenting their acquisition process. The manner in which these files were arranged in the gallery space—isolated, installed on an office Table —is what instigated our interest.

Rather than focus on the artworks on display, we have chosen to investigate Qui parle ? / Who Speaks? through the Exhibition archive : specifically, documents related to curatorial, technical, and promotional work. These include Acquisition records , Newsletters , Press releases , Correspondence , Reports , and other records that not only offer insight into the making of exhibitions but also act as departure points for considering the limits of archiving practices in creating a record of labour. Also included here is our own Residency archive , which contains references accumulated over the span of the project’s development, as well as Writing that elaborates on key concepts around which our research has congealed. Placed in relation through a network of links, tags, and annotations that address the opaque nature of institutional documents, this material invites visitors to engage directly with the very same questions we are trying to address: what are the implications of the exhibition archive as a map of labour? How might our orientation to these documents lead us toward new trajectories of inquiry and understanding? How do archives “speak”?

“At the table” is not only where exhibition making most often begins, it is also where we first encountered Qui parle ? / Who Speaks?, namely through archival research—an experience that shaped the form of our project. The box yet to be opened, the folder of confidential correspondence, the stack of annotated plans, and, most crucially perhaps, the various traces one leaves behind when moving from one document to the next have all anchored our exploration of the web site as a curatorial platform. It is our hope that the formal devices with which we speak to this experience allow for new complexities to surface: unheard voices, unasked questions, and unseen economies of labour that would have stayed hidden otherwise.