ENGAGE Projects

Chris Larson:
The Residue of Labor

April 8 - JUNE 25, 2022

Thread Works
series

“The residue of labor, which usually remains unseen, is a summation of minute tasks of everyday repetition that are required for production and equate to the steady degradation of once enduring objects, equipment, architecture, and communities.” — Chris Larson

Using industrial garment thread recovered from the abandoned factory, Larson’s Thread Works Series (2020-22) reimagines the product of the thread from functional garments to paintings, creating beauty out of discarded materials. Larson began by building a foot treadle-operated machine to wrap canvases vertically in thread with the precision of high technology and the randomness of human-generated frequency. Each individual piece is titled after the color code found on the bottom of a spool of thread.