Fair Employment Week is an annual campaign that promotes employment fairness for sessional lecturers and other contract faculty working in Canadian universities and colleges. 

OCADU Gleaners circa 2019

Ines Scepanovic, 100 McCaul lobby wall installation October 7-11, 2019

This site-specific installation uses imagery from Francois Millet's 1857 painting, The Gleaners, which depicts three impoverished farm workers collecting grain left behind after the harvest. The scale of Millet's original painting was 84cm X 112cm, a monumental size that was unprecedented in its depiction of themes of labour and poverty. The work was met with negative criticism and suspicion by the upper classes who saw this work as a glorification of the working class.

Originally located by the Sessional Faculty office at OCADU, this installation repeats, in varying sizes, multiple drawings of these three figures from The Gleaners. The figures are representative of the 77 sessional instructors currently employed in the Faculty of Art. As is the case with most Canadian universities, sessional faculty are precariously employed at OCADU. The university prides itself on hiring practicing artists, and yet arguably fails to foster an employment environment that encourages their art practices to flourish.

Please visit the work and consider generating discussion amongst your colleagues and students about these important issues. Please consider adding your name to CAUT's petition for improved working conditions for all faculty and academic staff: http://makeitfair.caut.ca/pledge