Collective Acts taps into the generative potential of archival research by artists into experiments with collective organizing and cooperative production, presenting new work by Dana Claxton, Jeneen Frei Njootli and the ReMatriate Collective, Christine D’Onofrio and Heather Kai Smith, alongside work by Salish Weavers Guild members Mary Peters, Adeline Lorenzetto and Annabel Stewart.

The Service, Office and Retail Workers’ Union of Canada (SORWUC) 1978 protest action against the Muckamuck Restaurant can be traced in a photo mural by Dana Claxton, digitally placing members of the ReMatriate Collective into an archival image of the demonstration. Collective members have lifted a slogan from the picket signs, transforming the message into a banner that festoons the Belkin’s south façade. Claxton and ReMatriate member Jeneen Frei Njootli create a sewing room for the production of ribbon skirts in public workshop events. Frei Njootli captures and renders abstract the sewing machine sounds in an audio work to permeate the acoustic vicinity of the Belkin.

— From the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery’s website