Surplus Value is a selection of old and new works that playfully responds to the site of assemblage as a storefront window and its physical environment. Surplus Value continues James Rollo’s practice of exploring methodologies of queering objects and spaces by challenging people’s expectations of said objects. The resulting anti-objects, visual glitches, and experiential anomalies are for the casual passersby to encounter and question what, exactly, has happened to them—are these objects of desire and utility, too, still just “passing?”. By queering this merchandise and having their identities shifted when pushed and extended into art objects, how will they be contemplated and looked at differently?

James Rollo is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator currently based in Toronto, Canada and London, UK. 

Surplus Value
James Rollo
May 15 – July 3, 2025
2015 Dundas Street West

For more information:
Instagram: @jamesthian
Website: jamesrollo.format.com