1. Refuse//Repose
REFUSE // REPOSE
1. Labor
Refusal of labor is the worker’s primary source of power. This power can only be enacted collectively: the individual refusal of labor ends in a wasted martyrdom. Collective refusal is one of the few acts of inaction able to produce mass change. It is a “productive” cessation.
Repose on the job is the individual subterfuge: the sixth cigarette break; the intentional inactivity of the machine. Repose does not change the underlying conditions, it is a ritual wasting for the self.
2. Waste
Refuse is the physical material of waste. It is the collected discharge of humanity’s overactive metabolism.
Repose is the quality of the trash pile: the slope at which material rests. For human refuse that angle is approximately 30 degrees.
3. Action
Re-fuse is an act of transformation. It implies the return of fragments to a previously held shape, but the prior whole is not necessary. Re-fusing can also imply the reconfiguration of existing things into new forms. It is chimaeric.
Re-pose is a strategy of casual beauty. Re-pose is the lackadaisical cousin to re-fuse. Re-pose does not require transformation, nor does it require multiple objects. It only requires that a single object has multiple parts.
4. Ends
Refuse//Repose is explicitly against the contemporary built environment. There is much of our construction that is unsaveable except as the quarry for future worlds.
This exhibition is the culmination of the year of research undergone for the Kent State University Schidlowski Emerging Faculty Fellowship. The exhibition is comprised of 21 8’x’3’ panels built without drawings and filled with found architectural debris from across Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. By using architectural debris, the exhibition reorients its material extraction from original and neo-colonial landscapes to the backyard. Paired with the collective form of labor and design enacted with student assistants akin to gothic tracery, these intentional attitudes toward production outside of the imperial labor form aim to crack open the seemingly naturalized position of the “architect.”
One of Architect’s Newspaper most memorable exhibitions of 2023.
Panel 12: Beverly and Panel 21: Sophie currently on display at the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art.
Schidlowski Emerging Faculty Fellow 2022–23 Fellowship Exhibition
Adrienne Economos Miller
Student Assistants
Dominic Holiday Nguyên Lê
Gallery Coordinator
Ryan Scavnicky
1. Labor
Refusal of labor is the worker’s primary source of power. This power can only be enacted collectively: the individual refusal of labor ends in a wasted martyrdom. Collective refusal is one of the few acts of inaction able to produce mass change. It is a “productive” cessation.
Repose on the job is the individual subterfuge: the sixth cigarette break; the intentional inactivity of the machine. Repose does not change the underlying conditions, it is a ritual wasting for the self.
2. Waste
Refuse is the physical material of waste. It is the collected discharge of humanity’s overactive metabolism.
Repose is the quality of the trash pile: the slope at which material rests. For human refuse that angle is approximately 30 degrees.
3. Action
Re-fuse is an act of transformation. It implies the return of fragments to a previously held shape, but the prior whole is not necessary. Re-fusing can also imply the reconfiguration of existing things into new forms. It is chimaeric.
Re-pose is a strategy of casual beauty. Re-pose is the lackadaisical cousin to re-fuse. Re-pose does not require transformation, nor does it require multiple objects. It only requires that a single object has multiple parts.
4. Ends
Refuse//Repose is explicitly against the contemporary built environment. There is much of our construction that is unsaveable except as the quarry for future worlds.
This exhibition is the culmination of the year of research undergone for the Kent State University Schidlowski Emerging Faculty Fellowship. The exhibition is comprised of 21 8’x’3’ panels built without drawings and filled with found architectural debris from across Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. By using architectural debris, the exhibition reorients its material extraction from original and neo-colonial landscapes to the backyard. Paired with the collective form of labor and design enacted with student assistants akin to gothic tracery, these intentional attitudes toward production outside of the imperial labor form aim to crack open the seemingly naturalized position of the “architect.”
One of Architect’s Newspaper most memorable exhibitions of 2023.
Panel 12: Beverly and Panel 21: Sophie currently on display at the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art.
Schidlowski Emerging Faculty Fellow 2022–23 Fellowship Exhibition
Adrienne Economos Miller
Student Assistants
Dominic Holiday Nguyên Lê
Gallery Coordinator
Ryan Scavnicky
