Non-Regular: A book about precarious academic labour

In March 2018, I did an intervention outside the ECU president's office to draw attention to problematic working conditions for contract faculty. At that time the president enjoyed a bright, spacious 2,000 square-foot suite shared with four administrative staff. Meanwhile in the basement, 80+ sessional instructors shared a space about a third that size. Occupying about a quarter of this small space were over a hundred Ikea-style shelving cubicles. So I photographed the cubicl...es and installed the prints outside the president’s office. A year later I reactivated the project as a photo-text installation to underline how income and labour precarity for artists and educators is connected to income and housing precarity in Vancouver. I paired the photographs with the words of contract faculty who had contributed to our artist book "Non-Regular: Precarious academic labour at Emily Carr University of Art + Design" which I produced for my graduating project. I will be exhibiting Sessional Office in support of ECU faculty at their exhibition which opens this Thursday (see below). I'm pleased to bring this project back to the ECU campus to continue this conversation which unfortunately is still necessary due to the administration's continued overreliance on underpaid, contract teaching labour. I'll also be giving a talk at 11:30 am Feb 11 - details to follow.

Non-Regular friends, Sean Parkinson from FPSE will be talking contract faculty issues on CBC's the Early Edition, Thu @ 6:10am.Non-Regular friends, Sean Parkinson from FPSE will be talking contract faculty issues on CBC's the Early Edition, Thu @ 6:10am.

Just in time for Labour Day (and a new school year), the People's Co-op Bookstore is now carrying Non-Regular! On shelves Saturday Aug 31. at 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver. If you want to see Non-Regular in your local or campus bookstore or library, the ISBN is 978-1-927394-34-2 and they can order it through me - [email protected] - or through my publisher, UNIT/PITT Projects.

Join us on Saturday for an artist talk where we'll be discussing intersections of precarity with Tarah Hogue, Deneige Nadeau, Sunny Nestler, Lam Wong and...you?