05.12.2025 - 07.12.2025

Neon Foundation

The Luxury of Inefficiency is a large-scale installation that unfolds across more than seventy metres of space, constructed from over fifty thousand metres of rope alongside branches, electrical waste, textile remnants, construction debris, and discarded plastics. These materials, the by-products of a culture built on constant production and consumption, form a vast, warped structure that visitors can move through and experience from within. The work took eighteen months to produce and is built entirely through manual processes. Every element is tied, twisted, stretched, and held in tension by hand. The physical labour embedded in the installation is central to its meaning. In a cultural moment increasingly defined by speed, productivity, and optimisation, the work deliberately embraces slowness. At its core, the installation reflects on some of humanity’s earliest technologies: rope, textiles, gathered branches, and the act of making with the hand. These simple materials and techniques allowed humans to survive, organise, and build the foundations of society. The line, the most basic connection between two points, forms the structural and conceptual basis of the work. For over a decade, the line has been a central language in Kelly’s practice, functioning as a tool for drawing in space, constructing form, and exploring relationships between labour, material, and environment. While visually complex and immersive, The Luxury of Inefficiency also carries a political dimension. The work questions a system that relentlessly prioritises efficiency and productivity while simultaneously shifting the responsibility for environmental change onto individuals. In contrast, the installation proposes a slower, more reflective mode of making, one that values time, effort, and attention. In a world obsessed with efficiency, choosing slowness becomes a quiet act of resistance.