Explore Ibghy & Lemmens: Theatre from the Jungle at McIntosh Gallery

Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens, Meatpacking from Theatre from the Jungle, 2018. HD video (33 minutes). Video Still.

Theatre from the Jungle is a collaborative video installation by artist-duo Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens that investigates the experience of immigrant labour in the Canadian meatpacking industry. Developed with the participation of workers who come from a variety of cultural and migratory circumstances, the project addresses life within imbricated socio-cultural, economic, legal, and cross-border labour issues.

During the spring of 2018, Ibghy and Lemmens invited recent immigrants who were current or ex-employees of Maple Leaf Foods in Brandon, Manitoba, the largest hog processing plant in Canada, to participate in a series of workshops in which the group explored personal and collective experiences, and developed modes of representation that were specific to each. Using passages from Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle—a story that documents the struggles of immigrant labour in the Chicago meatpacking industry at the turn of the 20th century—participants rehearsed a script that interweaves events depicted in the novel with their own experiences in a meat processing facility. Footage from these workshops became the catalyst for a multi-channel video, presented in tandem with a series of interviews in which the participants describe their experience of immigrating to Canada and working in the meatpacking industry. 

Resources

Meatpacking (excerpt)

Reading Group (excerpt)

Interview with Elizabeth (Chen) (excerpt)

Interview with Tesfegergis (excerpt)

Interview with Juan (excerpt)

Exhibition panel discussion

Featuring Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens and Associate Professor of Geography at Western University Tony Weis, and moderated by McIntosh Gallery Curator Helen Gregory.

Acknowledgements

An earlier iteration of this exhibition was shown at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (April 12 - June 9, 2018), curated by John G. Hampton. The exhibition at McIntosh Gallery (September 17 - October 24, 2020) is presented with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and Western University.