JULIA BROWN

born 1978, Ann Arbor, MI; lives and works in Washington, DC Live feed: printer-error identification station and operator at an Italian luxury-silk textile factory; Or, before “Leaving the Factory,” the meditative disposition’s instinct for privacy, 2010 HD color video, sound, 2:49 minute loop
Courtesy of the artist

A worker searches for machine-printing errors in a luxury silk textile pattern. Hers is one of the few remaining human interventions in a formerly artisanal process. The title invokes both a silent film by the Lumière Brothers depicting workers leaving a factory in a socially cohesive group— in contrast to the checker’s isolation—and to the poetry of Louise Glück, which often grapples with the pain of loneliness and isolation.