Please join us for an in-gallery artist talk by Brenda Mabel Reid in combination with her exhibition Underlay at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) on Thursday, September 18, from 7-8:30 pm. The artist presentation will include an audience participation nap session. Visitors are invited to remove their shoes and sit or lie down on the futons and pillows provided. Reid proposes the nap as a restorative action, inviting us to revive ourselves and take up space in a joyful manner.
The exhibition, along with Andrew McPhail's exhibition TEXTiles, This is not an AIDS Quilt, runs from September 11 to December 6 at UWAG.
Brenda Mabel Reid, Underlay (detail Hold Fast festival), 2024, mixed media. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Brenda Mabel Reid’s ongoing large-scale quilt project Underlay explores quilts, architecture, and gender-queerness. Reid’s work challenges binary gender norms and uses quilted-architectural forms to explore quilting as a method of making a queer space that brings people together. Composed of 62 hexagonal blocks made of waterproof construction-grade materials, the form uses a classic tumbling block pattern that references both quilting and architecture. Each block is unique, featuring spray-painted patterns related to architectural drawings and materials. The blocks are modular and can be reconfigured via grommeted corners bound together using reflective nylon rope. This iteration of the project suggests an A-frame shelter or a child’s blanket fort. Visitors are invited to remove their shoes, enter the space, and sit or lie down on the futons provided as a place for contemplation or a relaxing nap. In a society predicated on productivity and a 24-hour news and entertainment cycle routinely focusing on crisis and spectacle, Reid proposes the nap as a restorative political action that incites us to revive ourselves and take up space in a joyful manner. As an object that encourages social engagement, Underlay endeavors to provide a safe space for reflection, regeneration, and community-building.
The artist acknowledges the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.