Human Capital

This body of work is the culmination of exploring multiple vantage points that peer into the interlaced phenomenon of political economy, which typically includes the economy, society and politics. The exhibition, Human Capital, is composed of painting, film, interviews, performance and photography. As someone who has lived and worked in Toronto’s downtown core for approximately a decade, I used myself in a short film called Liquidity Crisis. The film is centered around a character named “Jeff” who is a painter that explores the mechanisms behind property prices, labour, taxation and debt. In addition to this short film are a series of interviews with academics, gallerists, and arts industry professionals who provide unique perspectives into space, creative production, urbanity and life. Distilling these varied discourses are a series of photographs that position our financial system at the core of these intertwined narratives. The photographs present a dichotomy, which the film teases out in a more animated, engaged and performative fashion. Together this project not only explores the interrelated mechanics of market forces on the art industry and artists alike, but also questions the agency that individual citizens can, or should, have in influencing monetary policy, which has large socio-economic implications on urban environments and life alike