Behind the Art: Talking Politics with Laura Kenney

Gallery Blog

Laura Kenney’s work Friends (Quote, Unquote) could not be more topical. Featured in Confederation Centre Art Gallery’s current exhibition This Seems Personal, her rug (pictured above) explores ongoing tensions in Canadian-American relations. It’s an obsession the artist has explored for years.

According to Kenney, she has been thinking about our relationship with the United States since NAFTA was first introduced. As she says, “To sum it up…it ain’t easy living next to a superpower. Pierre Elliott Trudeau expressed it very well… ‘Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

Kenney says we are now in the stage where the elephant is angry and wants our side of the bed.

In Friends, Kenney says she was thinking of something Trudeau had said about the US and Canada being such great friends—the unspoken part being that we aren’t on even footing. We are in fact, getting beat up, she says.

Kenney is seeing people proud of Canada again, taking the flag back from the Freedom Convoy and buying Canadian.

“I’m not much of a flag waver but I have dusted off our flag and it is now up in the window. Fingers crossed Canadians can stay united and fight the beast.”

This Seems Personal is guest curated by Brandt Eisner. Supported by RBC Foundation.