42 folds emerges from a collection of around 600 handwritten notes rediscovered in a tin box in the belongings of Lauraine Mak’s childhood friend. Opening the creased papers reveal the words, drawings, smiley faces and scribbles that have remained enclosed since the moment they were first read and folded neatly back. Penned and passed back and forth between the two over the course of high school and first year art school, the notes serve as a temporal passage through adolescence, teenage emotions and the universal experience of juvenile naivety. All these years later, the notes stand as relics that capture the tension between the repressed melancholia and cherished nostalgia that comes from having a friendship that lives on only in memory.
Lauraine Mak (b. 1991) is an artist based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Her practice investigates philosophical notions, culminating in painting, sculpture, moving image and installation, with an interest in visual cultures produced by late capitalism. She holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, an MFA from Simon Fraser University, and was a guest student at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf under Rita McBride. Most recently she presented a solo exhibition at Medrar for Contemporary Art (Cairo), with an upcoming solo exhibition at Wil Aballe (Vancouver) in October 2026. Her work has been shown in Austria, Germany, Korea and Hong Kong.
This exhibition is curated by Asia Jong, Curatorial Aide.
