A
Jennifer Chan, 'Rather Not Work' (2017) Installation view. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.
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Jennifer Chan, 'Teach them how to chop' (2017) Installation view. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.
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Jennifer Chan,'Natural office sounds' (2017) Sound installation with headphones, magazines, chains, coffee table, white couch. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.
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Jennifer Chan, 'Happy or not' (2017) Visitor feedback buttons created with help from John Hampton. Installation view. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.
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Jennifer Chan, 'Agency' (2017) Installation view. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.
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Jennifer Chan, 'White Guilt' (2017) Installation view. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.
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Jennifer Chan, 'Self pitying Eeyore (Nice Guy)' (2017) Installation view. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.
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Jennifer Chan, 'Agency' (2017) Video still. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.
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Jennifer Chan, 'Holographic Will' (2017) Installation view. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.
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Jennifer Chan, 'SCUM (Society for Cutting Misogynists) rewrite of Valerie Solanas' Society for Cutting Up Men (1965)' (2017) Wifi Hotspot and webpages. With help from Devin Kenny, Thomas Kim + Georges Jacotey. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.

Radically mundane: confronting subjugation + exploitation while simulating ‘diversity’ + ‘equality’ in Jennifer Chan’s The Blue Pill

, 17 October 2017

Jennifer Chan‘s solo exhibition The Blue Pill at Brandon’s  AGSM (Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba) opened September 28 and is running to November 18. 

Jennifer Chan, ‘Agency’ (2017) Video still. Courtesy the artist + AGSM, Brandon.

The installation uses a number of mediums, including video, object assemblage, webpages, sound and prints to “explore her frustrated relationship with radical politics, workplace mundanity, and equality.” Politics, marketing and buzzwords like ‘diversity’ are picked apart to confront subjugation and exploitation and the ways these realities have become simulated into something neat.

The title refers to the 1999 sci-fi film The Matrix and lead character Neo’s choice between the red and blue pill, the latter of which will make the character “conveniently reject arcane knowledge in favour of living out a comfortable yet inauthentic lie.” It also references the way this term has been co-opted by men’s rights activist groups.

The exhibition also comes with an accompanying webpage which is an updated version of Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto (1967) and includes contributions/collaborations by Devin Kenny, Thomas Kim and Georges Jacotey.**

Jennifer Chan’s The Blue Pill solo exhibition is on at Brandon’s  AGSM (Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba), running September 28 to November 18, 2017.