Image credit: Sarah Browne, “How To Use Fool’s Gold”, installation view, 2012. Courtesy of Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. Photo credit: Scott Massey.

This is not on the radio. Scarcity of transmission goes deeper than words. Scarcity has always been about distribution, and distribution is no longer about supply and demand.

The materiality of labour is the same question. Sarah Browne understands metaphor. The metaphor of capitalism in how we relate with each other. But the macro is the micro and micro is where it all happens. Metaphors are gateway drugs. I like it when she asks Eileen Gray. This is a gesture. Letters don’t always need to be sent. Letters just need to be written. The question of the feminine. Of legacy. This is a craft thing. Lineage matters.

The modernist carpet hangs like a flag. The Donegal carpet is an emblem. The Donegal is no longer hand-knotted. Not in Ireland. Except for this one, hand-knotted by the women who used to work at the factory. They now work at the interpretative Heritage Centre. That goes another level. The lens of art is a microscope. Tradition is revived, and not just for a pavilion. I look up and cannot imagine the number of hours that went into this woolly mammoth. My imagination should be more anachronistic. I read her travel stories on the wall, listen to the rhythmic click of the automated slide projector; there is a sense of a journey taken. Her searching is still very visible. This makes the show open and this makes it different.