A collaboration between The Institute of Institutional Critique, Making Space, The Bureau of Noncompetitive Research, LMRM
Storefront exhibition online and viewable 24/7 at Whippersnapper, 594B Dundas Street West Toronto
August 1 - 24, 2025
Artist talk with all collectives + finissage: August 23, 4-6pm at 34 Stephanie Street
Gift shops are like the final exhibition in a museum, the unmissable stop on the visitor’s path to the exit. Generating up to as much as a quarter of a museum’s revenue, gift shops are crucial to museums’ bottom line. The gift shop’s contributions aren’t solely economic, they serve an important cultural role by highlighting the aspects of art the institution deems important. Repeated exposure to a work of art (on a postcard, a mug, an eraser, a pair of socks…) increases our preference for it. Utilizing this psychological phenomenon known as the “exposure effect”, gift shops shape the most significant parts of our museum visit, influencing what we consider “Great Art.”
In an effort to highlight the labour that goes behind the arts, this exhibition uses the gift shop form as a humourous peek into the operations that are made invisible in the final products you see on display. The Institute of Making Space for Noncompetitive Looms Gift Shop is a collaboration between four collectives: The Institute of Institutional Critique, LMRM, Making Space, and The Bureau of Noncompetitive Research. Having bonded over their shared interests in collaboration, slowness, and the unseen labour demanded by cultural work, each collective has produced merchandise that speaks to the continuous bureaucratic and administrative work that has become an essential part of the creative process. The merchandise for sale at this quasi-fictitious gift shop draws attention to the fundraising, bookkeeping, planning, feeding, conflict management, and imaginative problem-solving that is asked of artists and arts workers in order to make and show their work. By parodying the conventions of these highly curated retail spaces, The Institute of Making Space for Noncompetitive Looms Gift Shop proposes the transformation of the museum gift shop from a site of detached consumerism to one where we can talk openly about the working conditions that necessitate more collective solidarity.
The gift shop will be open to the public on August 23rd, 2024, 1-7pm. Outside of these opening hours, items can be purchased on the online storefront.
This exhibition is part of a programming series supported by Collective Collective, a project between eight visual arts collectives with majority racialized membership. As a response to the systemic racism and exploitative labour conditions in the arts, as well as the interrelated lack of sustainability within the sector, we are testing out organizational and curatorial practices that center values of collectivity, solidarity, and mutual aid through resource and labour sharing. This project was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.