I saw you in the archive
2024 - ongoing
multidisciplinary artistic-research project
artist statement:
I Saw You in the Archive is a multidisciplinary body of artwork that reveals the history of eugenic practices in Kitchener-Waterloo, ON in the mid 20th century, and questions how the framing of history impacts our personal understandings of each other’s identities. Mixing visuals associated with institutional archives and rubber factories, the artworks examine the former Kaufman Rubber Company and its owner A. R. Kaufman’s attempts to contain certain types of people, particularly those deemed ‘feeble-minded’. The exhibition embodies my experience parsing through this complicated history as a queer and neurodiverse woman—digging through a cacophony of propaganda pamphlets, shoe sale reports, instruction manuals for birth control use, blueprints of the factory, and photography of the workers. Through video documentation, I reintroduce remnants from the archive to the contemporary condominium that was formerly the rubber factory, connecting past rhetoric to today’s circumstances. The complicated layers of eugenics, birth control access, disability rights, and feminism seep into each other and spill into the gallery. Through use of performance and site-specific interventions, I challenge the internal shame many who have been othered experience and resist systems of containment that aim to erase our identities.
When I discovered the appalling history that took place at the Kaufman Rubber Company—that between 1929 and 1976 thousands of Kaufman factory workers were sterilized due to eugenic motivations—I was deeply unnerved.
While digging through archival records of this history, I was struck by the photographs of the factory workers. These were beautiful people who were shamed and forcibly controlled. I felt compelled to somehow honour them, and to not let their history be forgotten.
Detail shot, Rubber Boots, Rubber Gloves, Rubber Condoms, from Leaky Tomorrow series of six ready-made storage drawers housing collage interventions of archival elements, Paige Smith, 2025, University of Waterloo Art Gallery.
Installation shot of I Saw You in the Archive exhibition, Paige Smith, 2025, University of Waterloo Art Gallery. Documentation photography by Scott Lee.
EXHIBITION HISTORY:
2025 solo exhibition, University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG), Waterloo, ON (curated by Ivan Jurakic)
Press:
Imprint, “Art in Focus: Two Waterloo MFA theses dazzle at art gallery”, Alex Mu
List of artworks:
Punched In, performance for camera, video projection installation (stereo sound) with natural rubber latex and steel, 22 minutes, 27 seconds (loops). 2025. Steel frame fabricated by Rachel Fleming.
Tie the Knot Tight I, two-channel video installation on CRT TVs (stereo sound), photomerge photography of The Kaufman Lofts on craft paper and corrugated plastic, and other ready-made elements, 10 minutes, 4 seconds (loops). 2025.
Tie the Knot Tight II, one-channel video installation on CRT TV (silent), Sorel rubber boots (circa 198-), and other ready-made elements, 22 minutes, 27 seconds (loops). 2025.
A Leaky Tomorrow, series of six ready-made storage drawers housing collage interventions of archival elements. See below:
It’s All a Façade, Act 1, archival pamphlet “Sterilization Notes” (Parent Information Bureau, 1938) on transparent film, archival photography of former Kaufman Rubber Factory building exterior (1907) on transparent film, file folders, map of downtown Kitchener, pencil tracing, text on cardboard, text on paper, tee pins, synthetic rubber. 2025.
It’s All a Façade, Act 2, archival photography of former Kaufman Rubber Factory building exterior (1907) on transparent film, photography of archival factory machine operation manuals (circa 193-) on paper, plastic projection slide, file folder, pencil and pen tracings on paper, text on paper, cardboard, natural rubber latex. 2025.
A. R. Kaufman Is Not a Feminist Icon, archival photography of A. R. Kaufman posed for camera at his office desk on transparent film (circa 19--), 93 latex condoms. 2025.
Rubber Boots, Rubber Gloves, Rubber Condoms, photography of archival Sorel shoe catalog (circa 198-), archival factory machine operation manuals of boot drying racks (circa 193-) on paper, archival pamphlet “Better Babies” (Parent Information Bureau, circa 1958) on paper, portion of archival pamphlet “Sterilization Notes” (Parent Information Bureau, 1938) on natural rubber latex, file folder, clip board, pen tracing on transparent film, text on latex condoms, text on cardboard, two 45” Sorel boot shoelaces, natural rubber latex, synthetic rubber. 2025.
This University’s First Board of Governors Contained a Eugenicist, shredded map of region of Waterloo. 2025.
Curtain Call, Pencil drawing on paper, text on paper, craft shipping envelope, cardboard, paper, natural rubber latex. 2025.
I Saw You in the Archive is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
