GLASS INSULATORS

YYZLAB
YYZ Artists' Outlet
August 2014

YYZ WINDOW
September 2014

The YYZLAB, is a summer educational and mentoring residency at YYZ Artists’ Outlet, which was intended to catalyze the development of new methodologies and to expand networks of intellectual and artistic dialogue.

Glass insulators are small non-conducting domes that thread onto pegs on the cross-arms of telephone and telegraph poles and hold electrical lines in place while preventing the passage or leakage of electricity; artifacts of industry, they are small, individual components of a vast technological infrastructure. They have survived due to the integrity of their design and authenticity of their materials: in the 1970s, as technological advancements saw the phasing out of their production, they gained popularity as collectable objects. (Most of the insulators in this installation came from a now closed independent rural museum in Daly, Manitoba, that collected and celebrated manufactured objects for their quality of craftsmanship.) These unheroic objects exist as mass multiples, a form of industrial ephemera, each embossed with a logo or marking intended to distinguish it despite its similarity to all the others. Intended for industry, which values function over form, the insulators exude an incidental beauty.

Using Format