Seventh Gallery and Women’s Art Register Artist in Residence are pleased to present an exhibition of works by established artist Kate Just entitled CONSTRUCTION/WORK. The exhibition is inspired by Just’s recent stint as an artist in residence with Seventh and W.A.R.

For the residency and project at WAR, Kate undertook many visits to the W.A.R archives and examined examples of political text across books, files, magazines and artworks. She explored the curated Bulletin publications highlighting contemporary art practice and the It Comes in Waves podcast which features intergenerational conversations about feminism. Just also spent time learning about the people who keep W.A.R. and Seventh moving, including residency liaison Claudia Phares and Merren Ricketson and Seventh’s Lucie Loy. She participated in a round table discussion about feminism now with Azza Zein, Nur Shkembi and Meredith Rogers at George Paton Gallery on the 75/25 exhibition.

During her research, Kate came upon an advertisement for a curated performance exhibition at George Paton Gallery in 1980 called Women at Work, which inspired her exhibition. The advertisement featured a hand drawn yellow and black sign with the bold text WOMEN AT WORK riffing off ‘MEN AT WORK’ construction signs.

Kate decided to expand on the idea of construction work as a parallel metaphor for feminism as something hands on, focussed on process and progress, and active reshaping, reforming, and improving social structures. Just’s final installation at Seventh gallery presents a series of eight industrially produced construction and road safety signs inscribed with political messages. Text across the signs include ‘Rough Road Ahead,’ ‘Danger: Freedom of Expression Under Threat,’ ‘Protect Trans Lives’ and ‘Intersectional,’ signally current socio political concerns and issues. Large text based hanging blankets across the installation refer to the ongoing ‘construction work’ and ‘work, work, work’ of feminism and the political activism. Two hand knitted panels bearing the words ‘Women at Work’ and ‘Women’s Work’ refer to the ongoing binary between stereotypically conception of gendered forms and types of labour including craft media such as knitting, which is Just’s creative mainstay; a sweater bearing the text KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY BODY produced by Just in 2022 in response to the overturning of Roe V. Wade makes its first debut in an exhibition space and flags the increasingly oppressive measures the US government has taken to human rights since then.

Reflecting on the residency and exhibition works, Just reflects, ‘These are stifling and inhumane times, and I want to make work that continues to signal and reflect the social and political realities of our world.’ The exploration of the W.A.R. archives, and the relationships I forged with artists, archivists, curators, activists and researchers across the residency has been inspiring. The show springboards from a text in the archive to highlights the ongoing work artists and activists to reshape or social and political landscape.’