Mitch Mitchell
Box Factory

For the 10th anniversary of Papier, dc3 Art Projects is proud to debut the first vignette from Mitch Mitchell’s large-scale kinetic sculptural installation, Box Factory. A visual and auditory exploration of identity, labour, indulgence and mass consumption, Box Factory merges Mitchell’s interests in minimalism and maximalism to create a spiritual homage to the industrial assembly line presenting individual narratives from various points in the artist’s life, while the construction produces masses of mundane boxes.

Presented for Papier17, Box Factory (Boom Box), is a construction of history and narrative presented through a domestic record collection of punk rock, jazz, hip hop and soul integral to Mitchell’s passage from childhood to adulthood in Chicago, each album speaking to a unique story, as does the grouping as a whole. Within the structure of Boom Box is the skeletal framework of an industrial building under construction, gesturing to notions of ritual, future, manipulation and (dis)order. While the work is rooted in personal biography, the myriad of references create an indeterminate and open work, a small portion of a much larger narrative.

Presented alongside the installation are conceptual blueprints for the project in it’s entirely referencing various mechanical components for the assembly line. Found within the drawings are interpretations of a liquor cabinet, drum kit and loom station, amongst others, illustrating the visual and conceptual complexity of the Box Factory project that will be undertaken. Additional small drawings focusing on various directional pathways the Box Factory will take the viewers, with textile pattern designs, will be presented, alongside a hand-constructed paper workers suit speaking to the task of labour and industry.

Mitch Mitchell is an interdisciplinary print-based artist based in Montreal, Canada who explores identities of familial histories through the relationships of labour, industry and trade, as well as the waste generated by these practices. Mitchell has exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous individual and group exhibitions including a recent solo at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, I Will Meet You in the Sun, curated by Sarah Fillmore in 2016. His work was selected to represent Canada in the Printmaking Biennial in Douro, Portugal (2010 and 2012) and the Contemporary Canadian Print Exhibition at the Chongqing Art Museum in China (2011), and he has won multiple national and international awards. Mitchell holds an MFA from the University of Alberta, and currently lives and works in Montreal where he is an Assistant Professor of Print Media at Concordia University.