11h02m

Lansdowne

11h02m

By Jaspal Birdi

11h02m is from Jaspal Birdi’s 2020 exhibition Can I Play Outside, where the artist presented works she created while in residency at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery at the beginning of the pandemic. In early 2020, Birdi flew from Milan  back to her home in Toronto, where she continued the remainder of her residency. During lockdown, she worked from her home studio in a tall condo building. From her isolated, high up location, Jaspal would look out her windows and see clouds. This view from her window is featured in the artwork.

The work offers a look into the artist wrestling with feelings of confinement and isolation during the lockdown. Birdi remembered feeling that while the clouds constantly changed, the sameness of looking at the sky every day gave the artist a sense of separation from those she longed to be with. However, at the same time, seeing the clouds move collectively gave her a sense of being among a community as well as hope that the world would move on eventually from the crisis together.

The metallic aspect of this artwork comes from pieces of emergency blankets on which her photo transfers have been laid. Having eventual travel in mind for this work, the artist wanted to work with something light, opting for the blankets in place of canvas. We hope to translate this metallic quality into the final print.

Wanting to simulate her studio’s windows in Toronto, the artist wishes for the grid of the Lansdowne station wall to be visible in the installation of her work.