José Luis Torres
Material Culture

José Luis Torres’ sculptural work focuses on materiality and the ways in which readymade items can be manipulated to create visually dense immersive environments. Material Culture is a site-specific installation featuring an accumulation of over 300 colourful items alternately sourced on campus, thrifted, donated, purchased on Kijiji, and from retailers such as Princess Auto and Dollarama. Suspended in the gallery, the disparate rainbow of objects functions as a kaleidoscopic canopy that celebrates and critiques consumerism in equal measure. Torres’ work uses our familiarity with these domestic, institutional, and recreational items as a way of elevating our appreciation of the everyday, while also inviting us to consider the problematic status of consumer culture: our knack for accumulating stuff, and the growing complexities surrounding the storage, recycling, and disposal of the surplus goods we accumulate.