Plug In ICA

SAVE THE DATE | Plug In ICA 2017 Art Auction & Gala
2017-11-04 19:00 - 22:00 UTC
SAVE THE DATE
Plug In ICA 2017
Art Auction and Gala

November 4th, 2017
7pm
The Bay Basement | 450 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg
Tickets • $200
VIP Table of 10 • $3000
Post Gala Party (after 11pm) • $45
Special Musical Guests announced soon!

This year’s Gala will take place Saturday, November 04, 2017 at 7pm in the expansive and dramatic space of The Bay Basement. With your help, we are hoping to make our 2017 Gala our most successful fundraiser to date.
We have an incredible list of artists who have generously donated artworks and have amazing culinary partners.
The proceeds you help raise will keep us FREE and accessible to all. Your contributions go directly towards programming, ensuring Plug In ICA continues to provide world-class exhibitions, events, lectures, online projects and education programs that remain free to all.
Please join us for this pinnacle event.
Purchase tickets, make a donation or support a sponsorship here ->https://shop.plugin.org/collections/plug-in-ica-gala-2017
#plugingala17

Art Auction Artists
Abbas Akhavan • Juan Ortiz Apuy • Graham Asmundson • Kristina Banera • Charline Bataille • Nadia Belerique • Scott Benesiinabandan • Irene Bindi • Valerie Blass • Annie Briard • Patrick Cruz • The Ephemerals • Erica Eryes • Dayna Danger • FASTWÜRMS • Ray Fenwick • Kandis Friesen • Kara Hamilton • Frederico Herrero • Instant Coffee • Toril Johannessen • Ursula Johnson • Wanda Koop • Lise Latreille • Chloe Lum (Seripop) • Ursula Mayer • Divya Mehra • Katrina Mendoza • Bernie Miller • Natalie Putschwitz • Andrea Roberts • Andreas Rutkauskas • Fred Sandback • Suzie Smith • Krista Belle Stewart • Tereza Tacic • Ron Tran • Collin Zipp

PRESENTING SPONSOR
Montrose Winnipeg Inc.
CHAMPAGNE SPONSOR
Tony Mitousis – CGM Engineering
GALA HOST COMMITTEE
Co-chairs: David Carr & Silvester Komlodi
Leanne Akman, Tracy Bowman, Zia Hameed, Angela Forget, Erin Josephson-Laidlaw, Joe Kalturnyk, Sotirios Kotoulas, Shana Menkis, Tony Mitousis, Jenifer Papararo, Karine Pelletier, Sarah Secter and Marlene Stern

Clay Figure Building Workshops with Artist Jaime Black
2017-10-23 17:30 - 19:30
Meet at Plug In ICA – 460 Portage Avenue • Workshop at Studio 393 • 393 Portage Avenue, in the skywalk between Portage Place and The Bay

Programmed in conjunction with our current exhibition Entering the Landscape, artist Jaime Black will facilitate clay figure-building workshops on Monday, October 23 and Wednesday, October 25 from 5:30-8:30pm. The programing on both evenings will begin at Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art with a short tour of Entering the Landscape. From there, we will move to Gallery 393 where Jaime will introduce the workshop, and teach participants a basic hand-building technique to sculpt the clay. Please join us for one or both sessions.
Building on Black’s persistent interest in land-based practices, this workshop derives from the premise that the land mutually shapes and is shaped by us. Taking clay as material also draws connections on a wider global scale, recognizing its uses worldwide for utilitarian and spiritual purposes. Drawing out these references, Black facilitates an opportunity for a tangible and embodied relationship to the land.
All materials and tools will be provided. Participants are welcome to bring their creations home with them after the workshop.

Jaime Black is a Winnipeg-based multidisciplinary artist of mixed Anishnaabe/Cree and European descent using installation, photography and performance to examine themes of gender, identity, place and resistance. As an active member of the Winnipeg arts community, Black has developed arts education curriculum for Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art, was an active board member for Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA), and filed the role of Education Coordinator at Martha Street Print Studio. As an artist, Black has shown widely throughout Canada. Her well-known piece, The REDress Project is on permanent display at the Human Rights Museum, and has become a nationally recognized symbol of the struggle and response to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. She was recently the artist in residence for the department of gender studies at the University of Toronto where she produced We Are the Land. In the spring of 2017, Black exhibited work for Traces at Urban Shaman, and in the fall of 2017, Shards at Gallery 1c03. Black was recently invited to be a facilitator for the prominent Kaha:wi Dance Theatre Creation Lab.
These workshop are generously supported by Studio 393 and programmed in conjunction with Entering the Landscape (October 1 to December 31, 2017) Pia Arke • Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory • Jaime Black • Lori Blondeau • A.K. Burns • The Ephemerals • Melissa General • Rebecca Horn • Katherine Hubbard • Maria Hupfield • Simone Jones • Tau Lewis • Amy Malbeuf • Meryl McMaster • Ana Mendieta • Natalie Purschwitz • Dominique Rey • Jamie Ross • Xaviera Simmons • Ming Wong • Alize Zorlutuna Entering the Landscape is a contemplative group exhibition featuring twenty-one artists from Canada, the USA, Denmark, and Berlin. Working in film and video, photography, sculpture, and performance these artists represent a breadth of politicized contemporary and iconic historical works that place the female or queer body in the landscape. Bringing together artworks that conceptually and aesthetically overlap, this exhibition identifies and considers a persistent motif in contemporary art.

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

ASSOCIATED PROGRAMMING
Respondent Series talk with Lori Blondeau | Thursday, November 16, 7pm
Premier screening of After Birth, 2017 by The Ephermerals with discussion moderated by Jenifer Papararo | Thursday, November 23, 7pm
Guided tours | tournée guidée en français
Curatorial Tour with Sarah Nesbitt | Saturday, October 21, 3pm
Tournée guidée en française avec Janelle Tougas | samedi 28 Octobre, 15h
Curatorial Tour with Jenifer Papararo | Saturday, December 09, 3pm

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/supportor by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by telephone at (204) 942-1043.

Related exhibit:
Entering the Landscape

Curatorial Tours - Entering the Landscape
2017-10-21 15:00 - 2017-12-31 15:00
Guided tours | tournée guidée en français
Curatorial Tour with Sarah Nesbitt | Saturday, October 21, 3pm
Tournée guidée en française avec Janelle Tougas | Le samedi 28 Octobre, 15h
Joint Curatorial Tour of Insurgence/Resurgence and Entering the Landscape followed by discussion with curators Julie Nagam, Jaimie Isaac, Jenifer Papararo, and Sarah Nesbitt | Tuesday, November 19 4:15-5pm, tour at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and 5:15-6pm tour at Plug In ICA, 6pm discussion at Plug In ICA.
Curatorial Tour with Jenifer Papararo | Saturday, December 09, 3pm

Entering the Landscape
Pia Arke (1958-2007 Greenland and Denmark) • Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (Iqaluit) • Jaime Black (Winnipeg) • Lori Blondeau (Saskatoon) • A.K. Burns (New York) • The Ephemerals (Winnipeg) • Melissa General (Toronto) • Rebecca Horn (Berlin) • Katherine Hubbard (New York, USA) • Maria Hupfield (New York) • Simone Jones (Toronto) • Tau Lewis (Toronto) • Amy Malbeuf (Rich Lake Alberta) • Meryl McMaster (Ottawa) • Ana Mendieta (Cuba) • Natalie Purschwitz (Vancouver) • Dominique Rey (Winnipeg), • Jamie Ross (Montreal) • Xaviera Simmons (New York) • Ming Wong (Berlin) • Alize Zorlutuna (Toronto)
Entering the Landscape
October 1 to December 31, 2017
Respondent Series talk with Lori Blondeau | Thursday, November 16, 7pm
Premier of After Birth, 2017 by The Ephemerals, discussion moderated by Jenifer Papararo | Thursday, November 23, 7pm
Entering the Landscape, a contemplative group exhibition featuring twenty-one artists from Canada, the USA, Denmark, and Berlin. Working in film and video, photography, sculpture, and performance these artists represent a breadth of politicized contemporary and iconic historical works that place the female or queer body in the landscape. Bringing together artworks that conceptually and aesthetically overlap, this exhibition identifies and considers a persistent motif in contemporary art.
– Curated by Jenifer Papararo and Sarah Nesbitt

Related exhibit:
Entering the Landscape

Respondent Series | A Talk with Sherry Farrell Racette | From Colonialism to Visual Sovereignty: Indigenous Bodies and the Camera
2017-10-17 19:00 - 21:00
In response to our current exhibition Entering the Landscape, on Tuesday, October 17th at 7pm, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art presents “From Colonialism to Visual Sovereignty: Indigenous Bodies and the Camera” by beloved scholar, artist and educator, Sherry Farrell Racette as part of our Respondent Series.
Considering the extensive representation of Indigenous women employing video or photography in Entering the Landscape, Racette will contextualize the impact of these technologies historically and their contemporary uses. She will speak to the fraught history of visual representation as an early tool of colonization, with particular focus on lens-based media. Recognizing its contemporary use as an apparatus of resistance and reclamation, Racette will trace a trajectory that sees a transition from the camera as a colonial instrument used to fetishize, and sexualize Indigenous peoples, to its empowered use by Indigenous women beginning in the mid-twentieth century. Coming full circle, Racette posits the camera as “now enable[ing] powerful acts of the imaginary to affirm our stories, reclaim our sovereign bodies and assert our enduring relationship to land”.
Sherry Farrell Racette is an interdisciplinary scholar and artist. As a researcher, educator, writer and artist, Racette’s influence on advancing Indigenous art histories in the Canadian context has been profound. She is interested in Indigenous understandings and uses of archival practices, material culture, and photography. In addition to authoring several books, Racette’s essays appear in numerous scholarly publications including, Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies (2016), The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada (2012), and Manifestations: New Native Art Criticism (2011). As an artist, Racette works in a range of media, with a particular affection for beading. In 2012, she notably collaborated with Urban Shaman Gallery to bring the traveling exhibition Walking with our Sisters, a community arts project honouring missing and murdered Indigenous women, to Winnipeg. In 2016-2017, she was the inaugural resident “Distinguished Visiting Indigenous Faculty Fellow” at the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto and is currently teaching at the Faculty of Media, Art and Performance at the University of Regina.

This talk is programmed in conjunction with Entering the Landscape (October 1 to December 31, 2017)
Pia Arke • Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory • Jaime Black • Lori Blondeau • A.K. Burns • The Ephemerals • Melissa General • Rebecca Horn • Katherine Hubbard • Maria Hupfield • Simone Jones • Tau Lewis • Amy Malbeuf • Meryl McMaster • Ana Mendieta • Natalie Purschwitz • Dominique Rey • Jamie Ross • Xaviera Simmons • Ming Wong • Alize Zorlutuna

Entering the Landscape is a contemplative group exhibition featuring twenty-one artists from Canada, the USA, Denmark, and Berlin. Working in film and video, photography, sculpture, and performance these artists represent a breadth of politicized contemporary and iconic historical works that place the female or queer body in the landscape. Bringing together artworks that conceptually and aesthetically overlap, this exhibition identifies and considers a persistent motif in contemporary art.

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

ASSOCIATED PROGRAMMING
Clay Figure Building Workshop with Jaime Black | Monday, October 23, 5:30-8:30pm
Clay Figure Building Workshop with Jaime Black | Wednesday October 25, 5:30-8:30pm
Respondent Series talk with Lori Blondeau | Thursday, November 16, 7pm
Premier screening of After Birth, 2017 by The Ephermerals with discussion moderated by Jenifer Papararo | Thursday, November 23, 7pm
Guided tours | tournée guidée en français
Curatorial Tour with Sarah Nesbitt | Saturday, October 21, 3pm
Tournée guidée en française avec Janelle Tougas | samedi 28 Octobre, 15h
Curatorial Tour with Jenifer Papararo | Saturday, December 09, 3pm

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/supportor by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by telephone at (204) 942-1043.

Related exhibit:
Entering the Landscape

Entering the Landscape Panel Discussion
2017-09-30 13:00 - 15:00
Pia Arke (1958-2007 Greenland and Denmark) • Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (Iqaluit) • Jaime Black (Winnipeg) • Lori Blondeau (Saskatoon) • A.K. Burns (New York) • The Ephemerals (Winnipeg) • Melissa General (Toronto) • Rebecca Horn (Berlin) • Katherine Hubbard (New York, USA) • Maria Hupfield (New York) • Simone Jones (Toronto) • Tau Lewis (Toronto) • Amy Malbeuf (Rich Lake Alberta) • Meryl McMaster (Ottawa) • Ana Mendieta (Cuba) • Natalie Purschwitz (Vancouver) • Dominique Rey (Winnipeg), • Jamie Ross (Montreal) • Xaviera Simmons (New York) • Ming Wong (Berlin) • Alize Zorlutuna (Toronto)
Entering the Landscape
October 1 to December 31, 2017
Opening Reception: Saturday September 30 | 8pm to 1am
Panel Discussion: Saturday september 30 | 1pm to 3pm
In conjunction with the opening events for our fall exhibition Entering the Landscape, we will host a panel discussion on Saturday, September 30 at 1pm. Artists Jaime Black, Tau Lewis, Jamie Ross, Dominique Rey and Xaviera Simmons will present a short introduction to their work, followed by a brief discussion moderated by Curators Jenifer Papararo and Sarah Nesbitt.
For more information about the exhibition:
https://plugin.org/exhibitions/2017/entering-landscape

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

Related exhibit:
Entering the Landscape

A.K. Burns: A Slow Rearrangement of Desires
2017-09-25 19:00 - 21:00
September 25, 2017 – 7pm
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art

In anticipation of our fall exhibition Entering the Landscape, opening on September 30th, 2017, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is extremely pleased to present an artist talk with Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist and educator, A.K. Burns.
On Monday, September 25th at 7pm, Burns will speak about her current project, Negative Space. For her talk titled ‘A Slow Rearrangement of Desires’ Burns will unravel the links between her recent body of work and camping in Utah, new materialism, access to resources and disdain for speed and newness, the current political apocalypse, collaboration, and previous projects. This interweaving of land and body follows many of the same lines of inquiry as Leave No Trace, the sound and text-based installation that Burns will present as her contribution to Entering the Landscape.

A. K. Burns uses video, sculpture and installation to querie the socio-political constructs that give form and meaning to contemporary notions of the body. Her current project, Negative Space is a cycle of five video installations that take speculative fiction as a point of departure. Burns is a prolific artist, respected thinker and educator and was recently selected as the artist in residence at the New Museum (spring 2017). Her work has been exhibited internationally with shows at the New Museum, NY; the Tate Modern, London; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Sculpture Center, NY; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA. Burns was a 2016-17 Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University and a recipient of a 2015 Creative Capital Foundation Visual Arts Award. Burns currently teaches at Hunter College Graduate Department of Art & Art History, and in the Sculpture Department at NYU Steinhardt.

This talk is programmed in conjunction with Entering the Landscape
(October 1 to December 31, 2017)
Opening Reception: Saturday September 30 | 8pm to 1am
Panel Discussion: Saturday september 30 | 1pm to 3pm

Pia Arke • Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory • Jaime Black • Lori Blondeau • A.K. Burns • The Ephemerals • Melissa General • Rebecca Horn • Katherine Hubbard • Maria Hupfield • Simone Jones • Tau Lewis • Amy Malbeuf • Meryl McMaster • Ana Mendieta • Natalie Purschwitz • Dominique Rey • Jamie Ross • Xaviera Simmons • Ming Wong • Alize Zorlutuna

Entering the Landscape is a contemplative group exhibition featuring twenty-one artists from Canada, the USA, Denmark, and Berlin. Working in film and video, photography, sculpture, and performance these artists represent a breadth of politicized contemporary and iconic historical works that place the female or queer body in the landscape. Bringing together artworks that conceptually and aesthetically overlap, this exhibition identifies and considers a persistent motif in contemporary art.

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.orgor by telephone at (204) 942-1043.

Related exhibit:
Entering the Landscape

Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth - Screening and Discussion [STAGES: Drawing the Curtain]
2017-09-20 19:00 - 20:30
Reception: 7-8pm; Screening and discussion: 8-8:30pm.

On Wednesday, September 20, from 7-10pm, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art will present a short screening and panel with the participants of our third session of Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth program (IIY). For this screening IIY participants Briand Assogbague, Jand Avila, Tuva Bergstrom, Renier Dumadag, Niko Lapierre, Bernal Delos Santos, Joel Jae Serrano, as well as our youth mentor, Giddeon Kitsa will present a short interpretive video produced by them in collaboration with Plug In ICA, Just TV and the Broadway Neighborhood Center. The resulting video is a visual reflection of the youth’s collective and individual experience of the offsite public art exhibition STAGES: Drawing the Curtain featuring nine artists from England, Scotland, Norway, Costa Rica and across Canada, including: Abbas Akhavan (Toronto), Pablo Bronstein (London, UK, Erica Eyres (Glasgow), Toril Johannessen (Tromsø, Norway), Kara Hamilton (Toronto), Federico Herrero (San José, Costa Rica), Divya Mehra (Winnipeg), Krista Belle Stewart (Vancouver), Ron Tran (Vancouver). For this iteration, participants had the opportunity to experience the works in-situ, attend performances, and speak directly with several of the artists about their process and intentions.
The evening will commence with a casual reception from 7-8pm, followed by a screening and panel discussion with IIY participants moderated by Sarah Nesbitt. This will take place from 8-8:30pm. Everyone welcome!
Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth is designed for youth ages 16 to 24. The program reverses a pre-existing interpretive model used within arts institutions that often produce short videos as educational devices. These often include interviews with artists or curators, images of artworks and installation shots; they often reference artists’ biographies, previous artworks, and at times, glimpse into artists’ studios. These videos are usually presented online or within the gallery or museum in close proximity to the artworks, and tend to place an emphasis on the artist’s and institution’s intention over the experience of the viewer.
The “Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth” program inversely begins with the youth’s experience of the artwork, challenging conventional models of art interpretation by overturning basic roles of authority and authorship.
The next session will begin in January 2018, looking at Skeena Reece’s solo exhibition Sweetgrass and Honey. To apply to the IIY program, or for more information about this and other education programs, please contact Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org. For general information please contact:info@plugin.org or call 1.204.942.1043.

This program is sponsored in part by Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance. We thank Just TV for their dedicated and expert partnership.
Plug In ICA extends our heartfelt gratitude to our generous donors, valued members, and dedicated volunteers. You make a difference.
We gratefully acknowledge the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org

Related exhibit:
STAGES: Drawing the Curtain

STAGES: Drawing the Curtain - Divya Mehra - Cruise Night
2017-09-03 21:00 - 22:00
STAGES: Drawing the Curtain • Cruise Night

September 3, 2017 – 9pm to 10pm

Flea Whiskey – 601 Erin St, Winnipeg, MB R3G 2W1

Join us on Sunday, September 3, 2017 from 9-10pm in the parking lot of Flea Whiskey pool hall (corner of Erin & Portage St.) to watch Divya Mehra’s work for STAGES: Drawing the Curtain – Nobody pray for me, the road to hell is paved with good intentions (Mapping Identity: The Challenges of Immigrant Culture) as it drives by on cruise night.
Bring a lawn chair, and a big gulp! Look for the Plug In van!

Related exhibit:
STAGES: Drawing the Curtain

Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth Summer Edition
2017-08-16 00:00 - 2017-09-20 00:00
Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth
August 16 to September 20, 2017
Plug In ICA – 460 Portage Avenue • Just TV @ The Broadway Neighbourhood Centre – 185 Young Street • Public locations in Winnipeg

Beginning on August 16th, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art will offer the third edition of “Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth.” The central premise of this program is to create a platform for youth to be introduced and exposed to contemporary art, artists, curators and art educators while developing skills related to art education, communications, journalism and videography. A second function of the program is to introduce the contemporary art milieu to the perspectives and interpretive modes of Youth. For this session the youth will be present at all stages of the exhibition from installation to opening, with opportunities to meet and interview the artists and staff.
Designed for youth ages 16 to 24. The program reverses a pre-existing interpretive model used within arts institutions who often produce short videos as educational devices. These videos often include interviews with artists or curators, images of artworks and installation shots; they often reference artists’ biographies, previous artworks, and at times, glimpse into artists’ studios. These videos are usually presented online or within the gallery or museum in close proximity to the artworks, and tend to place an emphasis on the artist’s and institution’s intention over the experience of the viewer.
The “Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth” program inversely begins with the youth’s experience of the artwork, challenging conventional models of art interpretation by overturning basic roles of authority and authorship. In partnership with Just TV, groups of 4-6 youth work in collaboration to produce a short video that will speak about their experience and interpretations of the artwork presented at Plug In ICA. This session will look at the exhibition Stages: Drawing the Curtain and will run for 5 weeks (10 sessions) each Wednesday and Saturday. For the summer session we will have some flexibility in terms of days/times to accommodate travel plans, etc.
For examples of video’s produced previously see: https://vimeo.com/218706778 & https://vimeo.com/210661133
For more information or to participate or to register as a participant, please fill out the registration form attatched and email it to sarah@plugin.org.
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art would like to thank Payworks, Wawanesa Mutual Insurance and RBC Foundation for the support of these Learning programs.

Related exhibit:
STAGES: Drawing the Curtain

File Download:
Interpreting Youth Registration Form

Open Studio for Wendy Book Club
2017-08-03 16:00 - 19:00
On Thursday, August 3, 2017 from 4-8pm, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art hosts one day of open studios in celebration of the productive Wendy Book Club, the second session of our Summer Institute research program facilitated by beloved artist, writer and performer, Walter Scott and diversely talented curator and artist Niki Little. For this event we have the honor of presenting work in process from fourteen thoughtful participants who have come from a range of disciplines, backgrounds and locations within Canada to study for three weeks under the careful guidance of Scott and Little.
Using Scott’s graphic novels, Wendy, 2014and Wendy’s Revenge, 2016 as a point of departure participants have engaged in activities reflective of the concerns of their fictional characters including yoga and astrological readings while thinking through satire as a strategy for self-reflection and cultural critique, marginalized narratives, and the subjectivities of artist, queer, non-artist, Indigenous, etc. Through a series of workshops with Scott and invited guests Maya Ben David, Becca Taylor, and Tau Lewis; an Indigenous art focused bike tour with Little, and public discussions, participants have been engaged in critical dialogue informing previously existing bodies of work and spurring new ones.
Join us for this opportunity to extend discussions, which have been incubating within the Institute, and conclude this wonderful three weeks of immersion. Some screenings and participant projects will run continuously through the duration of the evening, which begins at 4pm. A short program of performances will begin at 7pm concluding the evenings program. Cash bar will be open, everyone is welcome.
Participants of the Wendy Book Club Summer Institute, Session II with Walter Scott and Niki Little:
Joi T. Arcand • Alex Ateah • Madeline Bogoch • Viola Chen 陈宜晴 • Kristiane Church • Kelly Campbell • Dayna Danger • Jillian Groening • Whess Harman • Emma Mayer • Mariana Muñoz Gomez • Pooja Sen • Sarah Stewart • Tanis Worme
For More information on Scott and Little and the Summer Institute, Session II, see: https://plugin.org/node/1250
All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!
Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by phone at (204) 942-1043. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org
Related exhibit:
Walter Scott, Blinky Is Reading | June 12- September 04, 2017

Magic In Limitation • Artist Talk with Tau Lewis
2017-08-02 19:00 - 20:30
Self-taught artist Tau Lewis constructs sculptural portraits using found materials and objects sourced from urban and rural landscapes. She connects these acts of repurposing and collecting with diasporic experience and Black bodies. Her portraits are recuperative gestures that counter persistent tendencies to erase or peripheralize Black artists and narratives within Canadian art and history.
On Wednesday, August 2, 2017 at 7pm, Lewis will give an artist talk titled “Magic in Limitation” presented in conjunction with Wendy Book Club – session two of our 2017 Summer Institute research program, lead by Walter Scott and Niki Little.
Interested in the generative nature of thinking creatively about the material and financial realities of producing work, Lewis has found new freedom and possibility in using only materials she can source for free – scraps, found objects or leftovers. Working from this premise, that magic can be found in limitation, Lewis will introduce Winnipeg to her practice drawing out the connections between her material choices and the thematic concerns of her work such as: Black identity, adaptation and survival; identity politics; diasporic bodies and the environment; and self preservation and healing.
In addition to participating in the Wendy Book Club, Lewis’s work will be exhibited at Plug In ICA for the fall exhibition, Entering the Landscape opening September 30, 2017.
Tau Lewis is a Jamaican-Canadian artist living and working in Toronto, Ontario. A self-taught sculptor, Lewis combines natural and synthetic materials to create simulations of living things with careful consideration of the history and symbolism of her materials. Lewis has exhibited in Canada and the USA at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the New Museum, New York, and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. She has received support from Toronto Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council. Recent and forthcoming exhibition sites include: Oakville Galleries, COOPER COLE, Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, and Plug In ICA, Winnipeg, Canada.

Upcoming Wendy Book Club Programming:
Thursday, August 2, 2017 | 7pm
Summer Institute Open Studios
All our programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

The Summer Institute is an international post-graduate research program for professional artists working in all disciplines and media. In 2017 Plug In ICA hosts two sessions of the Institute, both emphasizing writing as an expanded field incorporating elements of critical confession, reflection and artistry. For the second session, July 17 to August 4, participants work with writer, artist and editor, Walter Scott and artist and curator, Niki Little with special guests Tau Lewis, Becca Taylor, and Maya Ben David.
Each session invites participants who wish to work independently or collaboratively based on their own interests and projects and includes opportunities to work in a peer-to-peer environment through group activities planned during the session. A number of guest artists, curators and theorists will visit the Summer Institute for lectures and studio visits.

The participants in the Wendy Book Club, Summer Institute Session II include:
Joi T. Arcand • Alex Ateah • Madeline Bogoch • Viola Chen 陈宜晴 • Kristiane Church • Kelly Campbell • Dayna Danger • Jillian Groening • Whess Harman • Emma Mayer • Mariana Muñoz Gomez • Pooja Sen • Sarah Stewart • Tanis Worme
For More information on the Wendy Book Club Summer Institute, Session II, see: https://plugin.org/node/1250

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by phone at (204) 942-1043. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org

Related exhibit:
Walter Scott, Blinky Is Reading | June 12- September 04, 2017

Curator talk by Becca Taylor of Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective
2017-07-31 10:00 - 11:30
Ociciwan is an inanimate Plains Cree noun relating to currents and rivers, translated to mean, “The current comes from there”. For Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective, the incorporation of this noun into their name explicitly references the North Saskatchewan River – an important passageway that transported people, ideas and materials to Edmonton from the west. The multiplicity of meaning connoted by the term conveys an energetic engagement with Indigenous contemporary culture as that which is simultaneously grounded in the past while projecting into the future.
Edmonton-based Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective has quickly gained recognition in Canada, launching their curatorial debut with Scene Report, with Wendy by Walter Scott in September of 2015. A collective with five core members and two program coordinators, they have commissioned public artworks, curated exhibitions in museums and galleries, facilitated a youth program, and hosted a writing workshop. Most recently Ociciwan collaborated with Postcommodity and Alex Waterman to create in memoriam, an ambitious project that “investigat(es) the connections between musical forms and constructs of historicization…whom and how we memorialize individuals and inscribe their legacies.”
On Monday, July 31, 2017 at 10am, artist and curator Becca Taylor will give a curatorial talk on behalf of Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective, programmed in conjunction with Wendy Book Club – session two of our 2017 Summer Institute research program, lead by Walter Scott and Niki Little. As a core member of the collective, Taylor will speak specifically about their mandate to support Indigenous contemporary art which includes advocating for innovative and experimental creative practices, youth outreach and research. Taylor will survey the collective’s work to date, reflecting on the curatorial process including the role of collaboration and partnership building; and the experience of working in a vast array of spaces ranging from art galleries to libraries to City Hall; in an architecture firm, and on a billboard.
Becca Taylor is a multi-disciplinary artist, youth worker and independent curator of Cree, Scottish and Irish descent. Her practice involves investigations of Indigenous community building and Indigenous feminisms through various media including video, text and installation. In 2015, Taylor was the Aboriginal Curator-in-residence at Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art gallery, awarded through the Canada Council for the Arts. As part of her residency she curated Traces in the summer of 2017. Taylor just recently completed the Indigenous Curatorial Research Practicum at the Banff Centre, where she curated A light left on in 2016.
This talk is programmed in conjunction with Session II of our Summer Institute research program, Wendy Book Club, co-facilitated by Walter Scott and Niki Little. Everyone welcome!
Upcoming public programming for Wendy Book Club includes:
Wednesday, August 2 | 7pm
Artist talk with Tau Lewis
Thursday, August 3 | TBD
Open Studio

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!
The Summer Institute is an international post-graduate research program for professional artists working in all disciplines and media. In 2017 Plug In ICA hosts two sessions of the Institute, both emphasizing writing as an expanded field incorporating elements of critical confession, reflection and artistry. For the second session, July 17 to August 4, participants work with writer, artist and editor, Walter Scott and artist and curator, Niki Little with special guests Tau Lewis, Becca Taylor, and Maya Ben David.
Each session invites participants who wish to work independently or collaboratively based on their own interests and projects and includes opportunities to work in a peer-to-peer environment through group activities planned during the session. A number of guest artists, curators and theorists will visit the Summer Institute for lectures and studio visits.
The participants in the Wendy Book Club, Summer Institute Session II include:
Joi T. Arcand • Alex Ateah • Madeline Bogoch • Viola Chen 陈宜晴 • Kristiane Church • Kelly Campbell • Dayna Danger • Jillian Groening • Whess Harman • Emma Mayer • Mariana Muñoz Gomez • Pooja Sen • Sarah Stewart • Tanis Worme
For More information on the Wendy Book Club Summer Institute, Session II, see: https://plugin.org/node/1250
Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/supportor by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by phone at (204) 942-1043. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org

Related exhibit:
Walter Scott, Blinky Is Reading | June 12- September 04, 2017

Coming of age as a 'fake nerd' • Artist Talk with Maya Ben David
2017-07-25 19:00 - 20:30
Maya Ben David embodies characters and anthropomorphizes inanimate objects, such as airplanes and other machines. She constructs and interacts with alternate universes, largely through the Interne and videos, but also live performance. Negotiating this online presence within her art practice, Ben David reflexively addresses the complex commingling of agency and misogyny online platforms engender.
On Tuesday, July 25th at 7pm, Ben David will present a public artist talk and screening, marking the second public presentation programmed in conjunction with Wendy Book Club – session two of our 2017 Summer Institute research program, lead by Walter Scott and Niki Little. Ben David will familiarize Winnipeg with her practice, emphasizing the underpinnings of her work with personas and character development, addressing the limitations and freedoms of persona performativity on the Internet. She will introduce and expand on the concept of vore – “the desire to consume or be consumed by a fictional character”- as a tool for coping with anxiety. In drawing out the complexity of this social practice, Ben David will deconstruct the underlying misogynist culture present in many online forums such as 9gag, Reddit and furry/anthro fandoms — with specific interest in the “fake nerd girl”, a term used to delegitimize women’s claim to “nerd content”.
As part of this unique performative presentation, Ben David will also screen a recent short film titled Anthro Baseball (2017).
Maya Ben David (MBD) is a Toronto based video performance Jewish-Iranian Anthro Plane. Ben David creates worlds and characters that explore concepts such as anthropomorphism, cosplay and performative personas. Ben David’s characters origin stories are established via video performance and are performed continuously through her online presence. Her characters inhabit alternate universes but also interact with each other and already established nostalgic universes such as Pokemon and Spider-Man. In addition to this, Ben David is also a character know as “MBD” who feuds with the many manifestations of herself and the art world. Most infamously, MBD is known for inciting online feuds with other artists such as Jon Rafman and Ajay Kurian. Ben David received her BFA from the University of Guelph, studied abroad at Hochschule für Künste Bremen, University of the Arts Bremen, Germany, and at Nanjing University of the Arts in Nanjing China. She has been featured in numerous group exhibitions in Canada, the USA and Europe. This talk and screening is programmed in conjunction with Session II of our Summer Institute research program, Wendy Book Club, co-facilitated by Walter Scott and Niki Little. The talk will be followed by a small reception and the chance to mingle with Summer Institute participants and faculty. Cash bar will be open. Everyone welcome!
Other public programming for Wendy Book Club includes:
Monday, July 31 | 10am
Curatorial talk with Becca Taylor
Wednesday, August 2 | 7pm
Artist talk with Tau Lewis
Friday, August 4 | TBD
Open Studio

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

The Summer Institute is an international post-graduate research program for professional artists working in all disciplines and media. In 2017 Plug In ICA hosts two sessions of the Institute, both emphasizing writing as an expanded field incorporating elements of critical confession, reflection and artistry. For the second session, July 17 to August 4, participants work with writer, artist and editor, Walter Scott and artist and curator, Niki Little with special guests Tau Lewis, Becca Taylor, and Maya Ben David.
Each session invites participants who wish to work independently or collaboratively based on their own interests and projects and includes opportunities to work in a peer-to-peer environment through group activities planned during the session. A number of guest artists, curators and theorists will visit the Summer Institute for lectures and studio visits.
The participants in the Wendy Book Club, Summer Institute Session II include:
Joi T. Arcand • Alex Ateah • Madeline Bogoch • Viola Chen 陈宜晴 • Kristiane Church • Kelly Campbell • Dayna Danger • Jillian Groening • Whess Harman • Emma Mayer • Mariana Muñoz Gomez • Pooja Sen • Sarah Stewart • Tanis Worme
For More information on the Wendy Book Club Summer Institute, Session II, see: https://plugin.org/node/1250

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by phone at (204) 942-1043. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org

Related exhibit:
Walter Scott, Blinky Is Reading | June 12- September 04, 2017

Walter Scott • Wendy’s Revenge Performance with Niki Little
2017-07-21 19:00 - 20:30
*Watch the video of the performance here!

Launching our public programming for Wendy Book Club, the second session of our 2017 Summer Institute, Walter Scott will perform Wendy’s Revenge on Friday, July 21 at 7pm. For this presentation, Scott will introduce Winnipeg to Xendy, an alter ego of Wendy. Wendy is the central character in Scott’s graphic novels, sculptures, drawings and Blinky Is Reading, the installation currently occupying the span of windows that make up Plug In ICA’s street front gallery.
In a series of serious and satirical gestures Xendy embarks on a mystical intergalactic journey. In her misadventures, she travels through space and encounters psychedelic landscapes where she meets curators and takes nefarious advice from naturopaths as she struggles to find a cure for the mysterious abdominal pain that ails her.
Wendy’s Revenge is a two-person performance featuring voice, image and sound. This performance lecture style was developed by Scott as a way to address the format of the artist talk. For this iteration, Niki Little will co-present with Scott.
This special presentation is programmed in conjunction with Session II of our Summer Institute research program, Wendy Book Club, co-facilitated by Scott and Little. The performance will be followed by a small reception and the chance to mingle with Summer Institute participants and faculty. Cash bar will be open. Everyone welcome!
Other public programming for Wendy Book Club includes:
Tuesday, July 25 | 7pm Artist talk with Maya Ben David
Monday, July 31 | 10am Curatorial talk with Becca Taylor
Wednesday, August 2 | 7pm Artist talk with Tau Lewis
Friday, August 4 | TBD Open Studio

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

The Summer Institute is an international post-graduate research program for professional artists working in all disciplines and media. In 2017 Plug In ICA hosts two sessions of the Institute, both emphasizing writing as an expanded field incorporating elements of critical confession, reflection and artistry. For the second session, July 17 to August 4, participants work with writer, artist and editor, Walter Scott and artist and curator, Niki Little with special guests Tau Lewis, Becca Taylor, and Maya Ben David.
Each session invites participants who wish to work independently or collaboratively based on their own interests and projects and includes opportunities to work in a peer-to-peer environment through group activities planned during the session. A number of guest artists, curators and theorists will visit the Summer Institute for lectures and studio visits.
The participants in the Wendy Book Club, Summer Institute Session II include:
Joi T. Arcand • Alex Ateah • Madeline Bogoch • Viola Chen 陈宜晴 • Kristiane Church • Kelly Campbell • Dayna Danger • Jillian Groening • Whess Harman • Emma Mayer • Mariana Muñoz Gomez • Pooja Sen • Sarah Stewart • Tanis Worme
For More information on the Wendy Book Club Summer Institute, Session II, including faculty and participant bios see: https://plugin.org/node/1250

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by phone at (204) 942-1043. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org

Related exhibit:
Walter Scott, Blinky Is Reading | June 12- September 04, 2017

Summer Institute II: Wendy Book Club with Walter Scott & Niki Little | Public Events
2017-07-14 10:00 - 2017-08-04 16:00
For the July 2017 session of Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art’s Summer Institute, Walter Scott and Niki Little co-facilitate the Wendy Book Club from July 14 to August 4, 2017. Taking Wendy (2014) and Wendy’s Revenge (2016) as their point of departure, they will use these texts to investigate satire as a strategy for self-reflection and cultural critique, marginalized narratives, and the subjectivities of artist, queer, non-artist, Indigenous, etc. Perceptions of the public and private world of the artist and representations of the art world will be discussed and “dispelled” through Wendy’s perspective.
While moving conceptually through the books, participants will also engage in a constellation of activities reflective of the concerns of their fictional characters. This may take the form of yoga, meditation exercises, and the exploration of esoteric practices such as tarot reading. Throughout the three weeks, “The Wendy Book Club” will take up the specific formal elements that comprise the graphic novel, expanding knowledge about comics and comic making. Scott and Little will additionally invite guest artists, and speakers with specific Indigenous-related knowledge, while also allowing ample studio time to reflect on the understandings generated as a group.

Public events:

Friday, July 21 | 7pm
Wendy’s Revenge Performance by Walter Scott
Tuesday, July 25 | 7pm
Coming of Age as a “Fake Nerd”
Artist talk with Maya Ben David
Monday, July 31 | 10am
Curatorial talk with Becca Taylor
Wednesday, August 2 | 7pm
Artist talk with Tau Lewis
*More info to come
Thursday, August 3 |4-8pm
Open Studio
*More info to come

For more information, including participant bios see: https://plugin.org/node/1250

Related exhibit:
Walter Scott, Blinky Is Reading | June 12- September 04, 2017

Open Studio for Summer Institute Session I with Chris Kraus
2017-06-29 16:00 - 21:00
Doors open at 4pm • Screening of
Gravity and Grace, 1996 at 4:30pm • Performances at 7pm
Participants of the Summer Institute, Session I with Chris Kraus:
Kristina Banera • Fabiola Carranza • Maegan Hill-Carroll • Daniel Colussi • Roewan Crowe • Erica Eryes • Esmé Hogeveen • Letch Kinloch• Soyoung Kwon • Chloë Lum • Kegan McFadden • Ralph Pritchard • Jasmine Reimer • Jacquelyn Ross • Faith Wilson.
This Thursday, June 29th, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art hosts one day of open studios and a wrap party in celebration of the thoughtful work produced by the first session of our Summer Institute research program, facilitated by the unparalleled writer, critic, artist and publisher, Chris Kraus. For this event we have the honor of presenting work in process from fifteen talented participants who have come from a vast range of disciplines, backgrounds and geographical locations to study for three weeks under the careful guidance of Kraus. In addition to presenting the work of such an exciting roster of writers and artists, we are happy to announce that we will be screening Gravity and Grace, 1996, an experimental film by Kraus. Screening at 4:30pm.
Engaged in regular writing workshops with Kraus and invited guests Robert Dewhurst and Natasha Stagg, film screenings and public discussions, participants have been engaged in critical dialogue informing previously existing bodies of work, or spurring new ones. Join us for this opportunity to extend discussions, which have been incubating within the Institute, and conclude this wonderful three weeks of immersion. Some screenings and participant projects will run continuously through the duration of the evening, which begins at 4pm. Screening of Gravity and Grace will happen at 4:30pm. A short program of performances and readings will begin at 7pm on the rooftop patio, and a chapbook produced by the participants will be available for sale while supplies last.
For More information on Chris Kraus and the Summer Institute, Session I, see: https://plugin.org/node/1248

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by phone at (204) 942-1043. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org

Stages Speaker Series: Artist Talk with Erica Eyres
2017-06-27 19:00 - 21:00
Former Globe Cinema, 3rd floor, Portage Place Shopping Centre, 393 Portage Ave, Winnipeg
Plug In ICA is pleased to present a talk by Glasgow based artist Erica Eyres, who is the 8th speaker in our 2017 Stages Speaker Series. This series is held off-site at the former Globe Cinema in Portage Place Mall, Winnipeg.
Erica Eyres’ artistic production is defined by an admirable proficiency in a range of media including drawing, film, and most recently ceramics. Thwarting her refined skills, she embraces awkwardness and humour that has a lo-fi aesthetic. Autbiography is often the subject of her work, which she obscures through costuming, narration and role reversals. She is influenced by the social and artistic milieu of Winnipeg, where Eyres was born and regularly returns to from her current home in Glasgow.
Eyres mines visual references from the surrealism of daily life and the aesthetic of TV, Eyres is interested in failure, and misaligned characters. Her drawings often play on sexuality and fantasy that is always slightly unsettled. In a similar mode her work with ceramics draws on everyday objects such as candles, insects, food or body parts, which operate as stand-alone objects that are decontextualized or estranged. Eyres graduated with an MFA from Glasgow School of Art in 2004. She has had solo exhibitions at CCA, Glasgow and the Kunsthaus, Erfurt, with selected group exhibitions including PS1, New York; Plug In ICA, Winnipeg; and The Akureyri Art Museum, Akureyri, Iceland. Recent exhibitions include The Vegetable Store, part of Glasgow International 2016; Holidays in the Future, at Lisa Kehler Art + Projects, Winnipeg (2015); and Biography Channel, ASC Gallery, London (2014). Upcoming projects include a solo exhibition at Queen’s Park Railway Club, Glasgow (2017). She is currently doing her PhD in Fine Art at Northumbria University.
This artist talk with Erica Eyres is part of Stages Speaker Series, which is offered in anticipation of Stages: Drawing the Curtain, a constellation of temporary public artworks to be launched in August 2017. This large-scale public art project asks artists to locate a site within the city of Winnipeg from which to contemplate the stage – its function as a platform; its meaning as a point of attention; and its physical design. Directed by their individual interests and material preferences, the artists will build sculptural ‘stages’ ranging in shape and form, connected as platforms for audiences to occupy, physically engage with and contemplate.
In keeping with the drive of Stages to bring art beyond our walls, all talks for Stages Speaker Series will be held at an off-site location. This presentation will be held at the former Globe Cinema, 3rd floor, Portage Place Shopping Centre, 393 Portage Ave, Winnipeg.
*Artists for Stages: Drawing the Curtain include: Abbas Akhavan (Toronto), Pablo Bronstein (London, UK), Erica Eyres (Glasgow, UK/ Winnipeg), Kara Hamilton (Toronto), Federico Herrero (San José, Costa Rica), Toril Johannessen (Tromsø, Norway), Divya Mehra (Winnipeg), Krista Belle Stewart (Vancouver) and Ron Tran (Vancouver).
**A selection of the Stages Speaker Series presentations are now online at https://plugin.org/videos
Stages Speaker Series and Stages: Drawing the Curtain are made possible through the Canada Council for the Arts New Chapter Program.
Our community partners include Alliance Française Manitoba, Alpha Masonry, Alt Hotel, Cityplace Mall (Triovest), CKUW, Edison Properties, Fillip, Portage Place Shopping Centre, Urbanink and Winnipeg Tourism.

Related exhibit:
STAGES: Drawing the Curtain

Co-presented by Also As Well Too and Plug In ICA’s Summer Institute: News from Afar by Jeanne Randolph
2017-06-26 14:00 - 15:00
Also As Well Too, in partnership with Plug In ICA’s Summer Institute, are tickled to present “News from Afar” by Jeanne Randolph as the next engagement in the response series There’s Something I Want to Tell You.
Jeanne Randolph will present a slide lecture on the topic of topics. Not the mother of all topics — it is just that topics can be a topic. Randolph guarantees that she will not channel Gertrude Stein, nor will she lapse into improvised nonsense. Nor has she rehearsed or presented or written any on this topic (of topics) before. Randolph is under the impression that topics need self-conscious (you and Jeanne, not the topics themselves) reflection.
Jeanne Randolph has been writing and performing for Canadian contemporary visual arts since 1980. Five books of her collected writings have been published since 1991. Her fourth book Ethics of Luxury: materialism and imagination[2007] and her latest book Shopping Cart Pantheism[2015] addressed consumerist visual culture. Images in Randolph’s books and writings are often selected from a massive collection of photographs she has taken. She has been awarded many national and provincial grants, as well as facilitated numerous art residencies.

This is programed in relation to Also As Too Well’s public program and is presented within the frame of Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art’s Summer Institute, an international post-graduate research program for professional artists working in all disciplines and media. In 2017 Plug In ICA hosts two sessions of the Institute, both emphasizing writing as an expanded field incorporating elements of critical confession, reflection and artistry. For the first session, June 13-June 29, 2017, participants will work with renowned writer, artist and editor, Chris Kraus with guests Natasha Stagg and Robert Dewhurst.
The participants in the Summer Institute, Session I include:
Kristina Banera • Fabiola Carranza • Maegan Hill-Carroll • Daniel Colussi • Roewan Crowe • Erica Eyres • Esmé Hogeveen • Letch Kinloch• Sooyoung Kwon • Chloë Lum • Kegan McFadden • Ralph Pritchard • Jasmine Reimer • Jacquelyn Ross • Faith Wilson.
For More information on Chris Kraus and the Summer Institute, Session I, see: https://plugin.org/node/1248

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by phone at (204) 942-1043. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org

Public Reading with Chris Kraus
2017-06-21 19:00 - 20:30
With abundant enthusiasm Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art presents a public reading with the unparalleled writer, publisher, editor and artist, Chris Kraus. Her proliﬁc and accumulated work has had a lasting inﬂuence on how art is perceived and discussed.
This public reading is programmed in conjunction the first session of our 2017 Summer Institute for which Kraus is the lead faculty. For her presentation, Kraus will read from After Kathy Acker: A Literary Biography. Kraus previously presented from this text at Plug In ICA in 2015 when it was still a work-in-progress, and now offers a privileged preview of the writing in its final stages, before it becomes available to the public on August 25th, 2017.
As novelist and critic, Kraus is recognized for her lucid, playful and provoking ﬁrst-person ﬁction narratives, which frequently blur theory, ﬁction, autobiography, and criticism. In her writing on contemporary art, she has explored boredom, poetry, privatized prisons, community art, corporate philanthropy, vertically integrated manufacturing, and discarded utopias, revealing the surprising persistence of micro-cultures.
Chris Kraus’ publications, praised for their intelligence, vulnerability and voracity, include: I Love Dick, Torpor, Aliens and Anorexia, Summer of Hate, Where Art Belongs, Video Green: Los Angeles Art and the Triumph of Nothingness, and Kelly Lake Store. Her monograph, “Lost Properties,” was written as part of Semiotexte’s pamphlet series for the 2014 Whitney Biennial. Kraus is the co-director of the acclaimed press Semiotext(e), where in 1990 she launched the imprint Native Agents, which introduced radical forms of writing by women writers. Native Agents has published the work of inﬂuential writers such as Penny Arcade, Fanny Howe, Ann Rower and Eileen Myles. She teaches in the Media Studies program at the European Graduate School.

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

This is programed in relation to the Summer Institute, an international post-graduate research program for professional artists working in all disciplines and media. In 2017 Plug In ICA hosts two sessions of the Institute, both emphasizing writing as an expanded field incorporating elements of critical confession, reflection and artistry. For the first session, June 13-June 29, 2017, participants will work with renowned writer, artist and editor, Chris Kraus with guests Natasha Stagg and Robert Dewhurst.
The participants in the Summer Institute, Session I include:
Kristina Banera • Fabiola Carranza • Maegan Hill-Carroll • Daniel Colussi • Roewan Crowe • Erica Eryes • Esmé Hogeveen • Letch Kinloch• Soyoung Kwon • Chloë Lum • Kegan McFadden • Ralph Pritchard • Jasmine Reimer • Jacquelyn Ross • Faith Wilson.
For More information on Chris Kraus and the Summer Institute, Session I, see: https://plugin.org/node/1248

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by phone at (204) 942-1043. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org

Screening of Green Fog, 2017 | Directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson
2017-06-20 19:00 - 21:30
On Tuesday, June 20th, 2017 Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is pleased to present a special screening of Green Fog, directed by Winnipeg cult favorite, Guy Maddin in collaboration with directors Even Johnson and Galen Johnson.
Green Fog, 2017is an adaptation/remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO, created entirely from previously shot footage repurposed from 96 Hollywood studio films shot on location in San Francisco over the last century. The film was commissioned from the San Francisco International Film Festival for its 60th anniversary and premiered in San Francisco on April 16th of this year. The presentation at Plug In ICA marks the films third screening internationally.
This special screening is programmed in conjunction with session one of our Summer Institute research program lead by Chris Kraus. The directors will be present at the screening and available for a question and answer period.

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

The Summer Institute is an international post-graduate research program for professional artists working in all disciplines and media. In 2017 Plug In ICA hosts two sessions of the Institute, both emphasizing writing as an expanded field incorporating elements of critical confession, reflection and artistry. For the first session, June 13-June 29, 2017, participants will work with renowned writer, artist and editor, Chris Kraus with guests Natasha Stagg and Robert Dewhurst.
Each session invites participants who wish to work independently or collaboratively based on their own interests and projects and includes opportunities to work in a peer-to-peer environment through group activities planned during the session. A number of guest artists, curators and theorists will visit the Summer Institute for lectures and studio visits.
The participants in the Summer Institute, Session I include:
Kristina Banera • Fabiola Carranza • Maegan Hill-Carroll • Daniel Colussi • Roewan Crowe • Erica Eryes • Esmé Hogeveen • Letch Kinloch• Soyoung Kwon • Chloë Lum • Kegan McFadden • Ralph Pritchard • Jasmine Reimer • Jacquelyn Ross • Faith Wilson.
For More information on Chris Kraus and the Summer Institute, Session I, see: https://plugin.org/node/1248

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org

For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by phone at (204) 942-1043. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org

Public Reading with LA-based Authors Natasha Stagg and Robert Dewhurst
2017-06-16 19:00 - 20:30
With great enthusiasm Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is honoured to host the inimitable writer, critic and publisher Chris Kraus as principal faculty for Session I of our 2017 Summer Institute research program (June 13-29). For the inaugural public program, on Friday, June 16, Kraus has invited two Los Angeles-based writers Natasha Stagg and Robert Dewhurst to give readings of their recent writing.
For this presentation Stagg will orate a passage from her inaugural novel, Surveys. Published in 2016 by Semiotext(e), Surveys is a wry first-person account of twenty-three-year-old Colleen’s sudden rise to fame in the era of social media set in the context of urban Los Angeles.
Following Stagg, Dewhurst will present a selection of his unpublished, and currently untitled critical biography of John Wieners (1934–2002), poète maudit of the Black Mountain and Beat generation.
Natasha Stagg was the editor for V Magazine and has most notably publishedSurveys a novel with Semiotext(e) in March of 2016. She has written for Texte Zur Kunst, Dis Magazine and Kaleidoscope. She received her MFA from the University of Arizona.
Robert Dewhurst is currently based in Los Angles, having received his PhD from SUNY Buffalo in English. He is a poet and the publisher of the chapbook imprint Scary Topiary Press and was the publisher of Wild Orchids Journal.

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!

The Summer Institute is an international post-graduate research program for professional artists working in all disciplines and media. In 2017 Plug In ICA hosts two sessions of the Institute, both emphasizing writing as an expanded field incorporating elements of critical confession, reflection and artistry. For the first session, June 13-June 29, 2017, participants will work with renowned writer, artist and editor, Chris Kraus with guests Natasha Stagg and Robert Dewhurst.
Each session invites participants who wish to work independently or collaboratively based on their own interests and projects and includes opportunities to work in a peer-to-peer environment through group activities planned during the session. A number of guest artists, curators and theorists will visit the Summer Institute for lectures and studio visits.
The participants in the Summer Institute, Session I include:
Kristina Banera • Fabiola Carranza • Maegan Hill-Carroll • Daniel Colussi • Roewan Crowe • Erica Eryes • Esmé Hogeveen • Letch Kinloch• Soyoung Kwon • Chloë Lum • Kegan McFadden • Ralph Pritchard • Jasmine Reimer • Jacquelyn Ross • Faith Wilson.
For More information on Chris Kraus and the Summer Institute, Session I, see: https://plugin.org/node/1248

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/supportor by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For media inquiries please contact: Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org or by phone at (204) 942-1043. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org

Summer Institute I: Chris Kraus
2017-06-13 10:00 - 2017-06-29 17:00
For this session of Summer Institute, Kraus will lead a group of participants in a conversation grounded in writing that will range from everyone’s ongoing work to the city of Winnipeg. Activities will likely include the production of a short video, a dance/movement class, city walks and guest screenings and lectures.
As a gathering of relative strangers, the participants will produce individual work influenced by each other’s proximity. The workshop is open to visual artists of all kinds as well as writers, critics and scholars.

Faculty
Writers Natasha Stagg and Robert Dewhurst will join the session. Natasha Stagg was the editor for V Magazine and has most notably published Surveysa novel with Semiotext(e) in March of 2016. She has written for Texte Zur Kunst, Dis Magazine and Kaleidoscope. She received her MFA from the University of Arizona. Robert Dewhurst is currently based in Los Angles, having received his PHd from SUNY Buffalo in English. He is a poet and the publisher of the chapbook imprint Scary Topiary Press and was the publisher of Wild Orchids Journal.
Chris Kraus’ publications, praised for their intelligence, vulnerability and voracity, include: I Love Dick, Torpor, Aliens and Anorexia, Summer of Hate, Where Art Belongs, Video Green: Los Angeles Art and the Triumph of Nothingness, and Kelly Lake Store. Her monograph, “Lost Properties,” was written as part of Semiotexte’s pamphlet series for the 2014 Whitney Biennial. Kraus is the co-director of the acclaimed press Semiotext(e), where in 1990 she launched the imprint Native Agents, which introduced radical forms of writing by women writers. Native Agents has published the work of inﬂuential writers such as Penny Arcade, Fanny Howe, Ann Rower and Eileen Myles. She teaches in the Media Studies program at the European Graduate School.

Participants
Kristina Banera is an emerging interdisciplinary artist from Lockport, Manitoba now living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her work often integrates sculpture and digital media to explore psychology of space, the home, and the interrelations that constitute it. She received her Bachelor of Fine Art honours degree at the University of Manitoba, with a concentration in studio art. Banera has been exhibited nationally in galleries, artist run centres and alternative spaces. Most recently she participated in I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone (2015) // Anticipating Distance (2015), a curatorial exchange project based on correspondence between two groups of artists in Vancouver and Winnipeg. In Anticipating Distance at Avenue Gallery in Vancouver, BC, Banera presented the work Where do we go from here? (2015) in which a video takes the viewer through a virtual landscape, while probing dialogue plays through headphones. Banera has been featured in group shows including: Exposition (Platform Centre for Photographic + Digital Ats, Winnipeg), NO VACANCY (One Night Stand/Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge), JUNKHAUS 1: Sublime Consumer Minimalists (Junkhaus) (Media Hub, Winnipeg), BACKYARD (C Space, Winnipeg).
Fabiola Carranza
b.1983) is a Costa Rican/Canadian visual artist living in Southern California. Carranza holds a MFA from University of British Columbia and a BFA from Emily Carr University. Noteworthy solo exhibitions include: Aedes Hallucinates in the Jungle (Malaspina Printmakers, Vancouver, 2016) and El hábito de estrofas (Despacio, San José, 2011). Carranza has participated in group exhibitions at The National Gallery of Costa Rica, 221A, Contemporary Art Gallery, Artspeak Gallery and Access Gallery in Vancouver. Her first public art commission, Seven Signs, was on view at Waterfront Park in Seattle last summer.
Megan Hill-Carroll is an artist living and working in Vancouver, Canada. She holds an MFA from the University of California Los Angeles and a BFA from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, where she grew up building houses. She was the 2010 Barbara Spohr Memorial Award winner. Her work has been exhibited in Los Angeles and across Canada and appeared in the latest issue of the photographic publication Capricious. She has given talks in Detroit and Birmingham, Alabama. Her writing has been published in the contemporary art magazine Fillip. She is represented by Wil Aballe Art Projects in Vancouver where her solo exhibition MunimentMonument was mounted in the summer of 2015. Her second solo exhibition Green Puce was recently on view in Winnipeg at the Platform Centre for Digital and Photographic Art; Jan. 7 through Feb.18, 2017.
Daniel Colussi is a writer/musician from the West Coast relocated to the geographic centre of North America. His writing is focused on contemporary music and musicians. His music ploughs the fields that lay at the negative end of the emotional spectrum. Daniel completes his M.A. in cultural studies from the University of Winnipeg in summer 2017.
Roewan Crow
Multidisciplinary artist and writer Roewan Crowe is energized by acts of disruption, radical transformation and the tactical deployment of self-reflexivity. Born under the big skies of Saskatchewan and raised in scofflaw Alberta, Crowe left the prairies to deepen her engagements with art and feminism, and to do graduate studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. A return to the prairies inspired art and writing centered on queer feminist reclamation practices. Crowe’s paid gig: Associate Professor and Chair in the department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Winnipeg.
Erica Eryes
Originally from Winnipeg, Erica Eyres lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. She holds an MFA from Glasgow School of Art. Through videos, drawings and sculptures, she explores narrative fallacies that complicate the viewer’s understanding of the author’s subjective truth, and problematizes the notion of the autobiographical. Frequently borrowing from the aesthetics of low-budget television, her videos centre around personal narratives and her own performance in her videos is revealed through a disembodied voice or pair of hands. This detached approach to performance is reflected in her recent series Conference Drawings (2016) and Life Drawings (2016).
Esmé Hogeveen is a reader, writer, and editor based in Toronto. In fall 2017, she will be a PhD candidate at York University’s Art History and Visual Culture program focusing on issues of judgment and phenomenological intuition relative to gendered (female) visuality and studying with Jennifer Fischer, Allyson Mitchell, and Dan Adler. She holds an MA in Critical Theory andCreative Research from the Hallie Ford Graduate School at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR), where she received a Merit Scholarship and the Best Research Thesis Award. She also holds a BA in English and Contemporary Studies from the University of King’s College (Halifax, NS) and recently participated in the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY) and the Gonzago Institute at the Khyber Centre for the Arts (Halifax,NS). She is a past recipient of two SSHRC CGS Master’s Scholarship offers. In 2016, Esmé was an Editorial Intern at C Magazine, for whom she has gone on to regularly write, including a recent feature interview with Lucca Fraser, “Feminisms of the Future, Now: Rethinking Technofeminism and the Manifesto Form,” for the Winter 2017 FORCE issue of C dedicated to contemporary feminisms. Esmé has also written for GUTS: Canadian Feminist Magazine, CRIT, PUBLIC, and Franz Kaka Gallery, and is a Collective Member at M,I,C,E. Magazine. She has done two residencies at the Caldera Arts Center (Sisters, OR) and her public reading series Default Design and Designation, conducted as part of the Robotics Residency and Exhibition at the Khyber Centre for the Arts (Halifax, NS), was named a Canadian Art “Must See.” Esmé’s writing practice frequently involves collaborations with artists and thinkers from diverse disciplines, with resulting projects with Hannah Levin McGraw, Luke Mohan, Matthew Green, and Sophie Kujiper Dickson. She is also a co-founder of the interdisciplinary research platform Reading With ______, which featured a public reading series on lyric metaphor in Toronto during 2016 and is currently developing its 2017 program.
Letch Kinloch is a Winnipeg-based writer, artist, and arts administrator whose work looks at metaphors of body, disease, and death as a way of thinking through societal ritual and expectation, and “the way things have always been done”. Letch is the founder of Also As Well Too Artist Book Library, a free and accessible space that celebrates, expands ideas around, and gives opportunities to people working with the artist book genre.
Soyoung Kwon is currently enrolled as PhD student at the European Graduate School, in the Philosophy, Art and Critical Thought program. Her research focuses on multi-cultural subjectivity through the lens of psychoanalysis and feminism. She has a Masters in Art, Culture, and Technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Informed by her identity as a Korean female immigrant, her thesis, miss translation: from fact to feeling to form, documented themes of migration, memory, monument, and image as experienced by Kwon during her time at MIT. She is currently enrolled in an acting workshop based on the Sanford Meisner and Michael Chekhov technique that emphasizes, “the reality of doing” and the psychological gesture.
During the Plug In workshop Kwon will begin work on her new project, The Retirement House for the Roomba. Considering the functional degradation of our machines over time (“smart” electronics being only a recent iteration), Kwon questions what kind of life can be had by these inventions after they’ve passed their prime. Then she asks, “What kind of planned housing does the planned obsolete deserve?”
Chloë Lum & Yannick Desranleau have participated in many group exhibitions throughout Canada, the United-States, and in Europe, including the University of Texas, Austin (2015); the Center for Books and Paper Arts, Columbia College, Chicago (2015); the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2011); the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2010); the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, England (2009); and at Whitechapel Project Space, London (2007). Their recent solo exhibitions include Khiele Gallery, St. Cloud State University, Minnesota (2016); the Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown (2014); YYZ Artists’ Outlet, Toronto(2013); and Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto (2012). Their performances have been presented at the Darling Foundry (2015), and as part of the OFFTA festival (2016). Lum and Desranleau are also known on the international music scene as co-founders of the avant-rock group AIDS Wolf, for whom they also produced award-winning concert posters under the name Séripop.
Kegan McFadden As a writer, curator, and artist, Kegan McFadden’s projects blur the line between cultural research and storytelling. McFadden has organized exhibitions for artist-run, university, and public galleries throughout Canada over the last decade, employing a curatorial method that is purposely subjective, in order to reposition received narratives and highlight alternative approaches to discourse. McFadden’s projects, which take the shape of publications, exhibitions, performances, and artworks, embody a theory of thinking through history. He animates his archival research with an emphasis on the anecdotal, and is particularly interested in locating networks of activity that have gone unacknowledged.
Ralph Pritchard is a moving image artist making work about desire, power and boundaries. They are currently writing a dystopian short film about emotional labour and technology. Ralph’s previous experience includes commissioning video content about politics and culture for Novara Media, curating screenings and group shows in London and co-directing a feature-length experimental film. Ralph co-hosts the podcast Gone Clear and is currently a member of the School of the Damned, an alternative fine art MA organised by and for its students.
Jasmine Reimer received a BFA from Emily Carr University in Vancouver in 2009 and a MFA from The University of Guelph in 2015. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Coherent Disorder and Confused Arousal’ at Georgia Scherman Projects, ‘Two Kinds of Anything’ at G Gallery Projects and ‘the harder softer side’ at The Dunlop Art Gallery. She is the recipient of many awards and grants including Canada Council for the Arts Project Grant, Ontario Arts Council Project Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Award, The Vancouver Foundation Emerging Artist Grant and the Canadian Millennium Achievement Award. Her work has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions internationally and included in private collections across Canada. In February 2017, she hosted a solo exhibition of new sculptures and released her first book of poetry both titled, Small Obstructions.
Jacquelyn Ross
is a writer and critic based in Toronto. Her writing has appeared in BOMB, Mousse, C Magazine, The Capilano Review, artforum.com, and elsewhere, and her recent chapbooks include Mayonnaise and Drawings on Yellow Paper. She publishes books by emerging artists and writers under the small press Blank Cheque, and is currently at work on a collection of stories.
Faith Wilson is an artist and writer from Hamilton, Aotearoa (New Zealand), currently residing in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington), Aotearoa. She is of both Samoan and Pakeha (New Zealand European) descent, and is part of the third generation of Pacific Island immigrants, growing up only in Aotearoa with minimal connection to Samoa. Completing a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Canterbury and the University of Waikato, she then completed her Honours in English Literature at the University of Victoria and was then accepted into the
International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria where she completed a Master of Arts in Creative Writing focusing on Poetry. She has been published in many literary publications in New Zealand. Growing up within the contemporary art world, she shunned it for many years, but then found it to have an urgency of expression she found the Aotearoa literary scene lacked. She began performing with her mother in a series of performances at Offstage, Common Ground and Enjoy Art
Gallery, and then began performing solo, incorporating video and text-based installation into her practice. She exhibited in New Perspectives, an exhibition co-curated by Simon Denny at Artspace, 2016 and is often involved in collaborative text-based artwork with Fresh n Fruity Gallery online. From then, she has had solo shows OLGA, Window Online, and Blue Oyster Artspace, and curated an exhibition Dark Objects at the Dowse Art Museum, Wellington in March 2017.
Faith Wilson is an artist and writer from Hamilton, Aotearoa (New Zealand), currently residing in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington), Aotearoa. She is of both Samoan and Pakeha (New Zealand European) descent, and is part of the third generation of Pacific Island immigrants, growing up only in Aotearoa with minimal connection to Samoa. Completing a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Canterbury and the University of Waikato, she then completed her Honours in English Literature at the University of Victoria and was then accepted into the
International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria where she completed a Master of Arts in Creative Writing focusing on Poetry. She has been published in many literary publications in New Zealand. Growing up within the contemporary art world, she shunned it for many years, but then found it to have an urgency of expression she found the Aotearoa literary scene lacked. She began performing with her mother in a series of performances at Offstage, Common Ground and Enjoy Art
Gallery, and then began performing solo, incorporating video and text-based installation into her practice. She exhibited in New Perspectives, an exhibition co-curated by Simon Denny at Artspace, 2016 and is often involved in collaborative text-based artwork with Fresh n Fruity Gallery online. From then, she has had solo shows OLGA, Window Online, and Blue Oyster Artspace, and curated an exhibition Dark Objects at the Dowse Art Museum, Wellington in March 2017.

Spring Exhibition Closing Party and Performance
2017-06-03 20:00 - 2017-06-04 00:00
Doors & Cash Bar | 8pm
Grottoesque | 10pm
Crabskul (DJ Set) | 11pm
On Saturday, June 3, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art will be celebrating the coming of summer and the end of our spring exhibitions with a closing party and performance. Doors and cash bar open at 8pm and at 10pm, Grottoesque – a “suite of Doo-wave cave ballads & staged banter”- will be presented by the performative musical duo Pastoralia (Ray Fenwick and Mitchell Wiebe) in the newly deconstructed space of Fenwick’s exhibition A Greenhouse. Evening.
Festivities continue into the evening with a DJ Set by Crabskull, and a first-come-first-serve plant sale with the “recently exhibited, sonically nurtured” plants from Ray Fenwick’s A Greenhouse. Evening. Also available for purchase – a special limited edition sweater, Step Mother Tongue and tote bag, External Packaging both produced specifically for the exhibition currently on view at Plug in ICA Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze) by Patrick Cruz.
Everyone welcome!

Stages Speaker Series: Artist Talk with Federico Herrero
2017-06-01 19:00 - 21:00
*Off-site Location- 393 Portage Ave, former Globe Cinema, 3rd floor, Portage Place Shopping Centre
Plug In ICA is pleased to present a talk by Costa Rican artist Federico Herrero, who is the 7th speaker as part of our 2017 Stages Speaker Series. This series is held off-site currently at the former Globe Cinema in Portage Place Mall, Winnipeg.
Federico Herrero’s work uses landscape and the urban environment both as the subject of his paintings and as the surface for his work. Incorporating shape, colour, pattern and graphic lines, his paintings often move beyond the canvas onto floors, walls, into the city-scape and on to architectural structures. Within an often limited palette with a pale blue often featured prominiently, Herrero embraces an intuitive approach to his work, leaving room to respond to the spaces his paintings inhabit.
Federico Herrero has had numerous solo exhibitions. Language Melody is currently presented at Sies + Hoke, Dusseldorf where he is exhibiting a new body of work, for which the gallery is publishing a 300 page monograph including an essay by Chris Sharp and an interview with Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy. He most recently exhibited as part of United States of Latin America at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit curated by Jen Hoffman and Pablo Leon de la Barra. He has participated in numerous international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale where he received a special prize for Young Artists in 2001. Since then he has shown to much acclaim at the Havana Biennial (2003); the Aichi World Expo, Nagoya, Japan (2005); Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami (2008); Museum of Latin American Art, Los Angeles (2012); and Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain (2013). Herrero lives and works in San José.
This artist talk with Federico Herrero is part of Stages Speaker Series, which is offered in anticipation of Stages: Drawing the Curtain, a constellation of temporary public artworks to be launched in August 2017. This large-scale public art project asks artists to locate a site within the city of Winnipeg from which to contemplate the stage – its function as a platform; its meaning as a point of attention; and its physical design. Directed by their individual interests and material preferences, the artists will build sculptural ‘stages’ ranging in shape and form, connected as platforms for audiences to occupy, physically engage with and contemplate.
In keeping with the drive of Stages to bring art beyond our walls, all talks for Stages Speaker Series will be held at an off-site location. This presentation will be held at the former Globe Cinema, 3rd floor, Portage Place Shopping Centre, 393 Portage Ave, Winnipeg.
*Artists for Stages: Drawing the Curtain include: Abbas Akhavan (Toronto), Pablo Bronstein (London, UK), Toril Johannessen (Tromsø, Norway), Kara Hamilton (Toronto), Federico Herrero (San José, Costa Rica), Divya Mehra (Winnipeg), Krista Belle Stewart (Vancouver) and Ron Tran (Vancouver).
**a selection of the presentations from Stages Speaker Series are now online at https://plugin.org/videos

Stages Speaker Series and Stages: Drawing the Curtain are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts through its New Chapter Program.
Our community partners include Winnipeg Tourism, Alliance Française Manitoba, Urbanink, Cityplace Mall (Triovest), Portage Place Shopping Centre and Fillip, CKUW, Alt Hotel, and Alpha Masonry.

Related exhibit:
STAGES: Drawing the Curtain

Stages Speaker Series: Artist Talk with Abbas Akhavan
2017-05-29 19:00 - 21:00
Former Globe Cinema, 3rd floor, Portage Place Shopping Centre, 393 Portage Ave, Winnipeg
Plug In ICA is pleased to present an artist talk by Abbas Akhavan, who is the 6th speaker as part of our 2017 Stages Speaker Series.
Akhavan’s practice ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video, sculpture and performance. The direction of Akhavan’s research has been deeply influenced by the specificity of the sites where he works: the architectures that house them, the economies that surround them, and the people that frequent them. The domestic sphere, as a forked space between hospitality and hostility, has been an ongoing area of research in his practice. More recent works have shifted focus, wandering onto spaces and species just outside the home – the garden, the backyard, and other domesticated landscapes.
Abass Akhavan is the recipient of Kunstpreis Berlin (2012), TFVA finalist prize (2012), The Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014), the Sobey Art Award (2015), and the Fellbach Triennial Award (2016). His recent solo exhibitions include, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2017); SALT Galata, Istanbul (2017); David Roberts Art Foundation (DRAF), London (2017); FLORA, Bogota (2016); Mercer Union, Toronto (2015) and Delfina Foundation, London (2012). His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2016); Wellcome Collection, London (2016); Beirut Art Centre, Beirut, (2015); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2014) and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2011).
This artist talk with Abbas Akhavan is part of Stages Speaker Series, which is offered in anticipation of Stages: Drawing the Curtain, a constellation of temporary public artworks to be launched in August 2017. This large-scale public art project asks artists to locate a site within the city of Winnipeg from which to contemplate the stage – its function as a platform; its meaning as a point of attention; and its physical design. Directed by their individual interests and material preferences, the artists will build sculptural ‘stages’ ranging in shape and form, connected as platforms for audiences to occupy, physically engage with and contemplate.
In keeping with the drive of Stages to bring art beyond our walls, all talks for Stages Speaker Series will be held at an off-site location. This presentation will be held at the former Globe Cinema, 3rd floor, Portage Place Shopping Centre, 393 Portage Ave, Winnipeg.
*Artists for Stages: Drawing the Curtain include: Abbas Akhavan (Toronto), Pablo Bronstein (London, UK), Toril Johannessen (Tromsø, Norway), Kara Hamilton (Toronto), Federico Herrero (San José, Costa Rica), Divya Mehra (Winnipeg), Krista Belle Stewart (Vancouver) and Ron Tran (Vancouver).
**Previous talks from Stages Speaker Series are now online at https://plugin.org/videos
Stages Speaker Series and Stages: Drawing the Curtain are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts through its New Chapter Program.
Our community partners include Winnipeg Tourism, Alliance Française Manitoba, Urbanink, Cityplace Mall (Triovest), Portage Place Shopping Centre, Fillip, CKUW, Alt Hotel, and Alpha Masonry.

Related exhibit:
STAGES: Drawing the Curtain

Rescheduled- Stages Speaker Series: Artist Talk with Divya Mehra
2017-05-03 19:00 - 21:00
Former Globe Cinema, 3rd floor, Portage Place Shopping Centre, 393 Portage Ave, Winnipeg
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Divya Mehra’s talk scheduled on Thursday, April 27th has been cancelled. We have rescheduled the talk for Wednesday, May 3rd at 7pm. We apologize for any inconvenience.
In continuation of our Stages Speaker Series, on Wednesday, May 3rd at 7pm, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art presents a performative talk by Winnipeg-based artist Divya Mehra at the Globe Cinema. She will present a series of short stories in lieu of speaking directly to her artwork.
Mehra’s work is an astute example of how art can destabilize our collective and individual perceptions about race and gender. She does this through pop cultural lines, manipulating common signs into pointed and at times barbed commentary that references the caution and insincerity of a forced political correctness. Mehra’s work carries a relevance that aims to be transformative, advancing a conversation surrounding identity. How our behaviors and responses contribute to a status quo that gives voice to diversity but remains steadfast in old hierarchies.
Working in sculpture, print, drawing, artist books, installation, advertising, and most recently film, Mehra is known for her meticulous attention to the interaction of form, medium and site that together produces an acerbic body of work, addressing the long-term effects of colonization and institutional racism. Re-contextualizing references found in hip-hop, literature, and current affairs, she contends with contemporary expressions of societies (India, America, Canada) continuously formed by their colonial roots.
Mehra’s solo exhibitions include It’s Gonna Rain, The New Gallery, Calgary; Pouring Water on a Drowning Man, Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto; You have to tell Them, i’m not a Racist, La Maison Des Artistes, Winnipeg; The Party is Over, Artspeak, Vancouver; and Turf War, Platform: center for photographic + digital arts, Winnipeg. Mehra’s work has been presented as part of exhibitions and commissions with MoMA PS1, Creative Time, and the Queens Museum of Art, New York; MASS MoCA, North Adams; Latitude 28, Delhi; and The Beijing 798 Biennale. Mehra holds an MFA from Columbia University and is represented in Toronto by Georgia Scherman Projects. She is currently based in Winnipeg. Divya Mehra (b. 1981) year of the Rooster.

This performative artist talk with Divya Mehra is part of Stages Speaker Series, featuring artists from Canada and the world. The series is offered in anticipation of Stages: Drawing the Curtain, a constellation of public artworks to be launched in August 2017. This large-scale public art project asks artists to locate a site within the city of Winnipeg from which to contemplate the stage – its function as a platform; its meaning as a point of attention; and its physical design. Directed by their individual interests and material preferences, the artists will build sculptural ‘stages’ ranging in shape and form, connected as platforms for audiences to occupy, physically engage with and contemplate.
In keeping with the drive of Stages to bring art beyond our walls, all talks for Stages Speaker Series will be held at an off-site location. This presentation will be held at the former Globe Cinema, 3rd floor, Portage Place Shopping Centre, 393 Portage Ave, Winnipeg.
*Artists for Stages: Drawing the Curtain include: Abbas Akhavan (Toronto), Pablo Bronstein (London, UK), FASTWÜRMS (Toronto), Toril Johannessen (Tromsø, Norway), Kara Hamilton (Toronto), Federico Herrero (San José, Costa Rica), Divya Mehra (Winnipeg), and Krista Belle Stewart (Vancouver).
**Previous talks from Stages Speaker Series are now online at https://plugin.org/videos
Stages Speaker Series and Stages: Drawing the Curtain are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts through its New Chapter Program.
Our community partners include Winnipeg Tourism, Alliance Française Manitoba, Urban Ink Design, Cityplace Mall (Triovest), Portage Place Shopping Centre, Alt Hotel, Alpha Masonry Ltd and Fillip Publishers.

Plug In ICA extends our heartfelt gratitude to our generous donors, valued members, and dedicated volunteers. We acknowledge the sustaining support of our Director’s Circle. You all make a difference.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For more information on this and our other education programs, contact Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org. For general information please contact: info@plugin.org or call 1.204.942.1043

Related exhibit:
STAGES: Drawing the Curtain

Tournée guidée en français par Janelle Tougas des deux expositions de la programmation du printemps
2017-04-29 15:00 - 16:00
Le samedi 29 avril, Plug In ICA présente une tournée guidée en français par Janelle Tougas des deux expositions de la programmation du printemps. Pour ces deux expositions en solo, les deux artistes ont créé des environnements immersifs dans leurs galeries respectives du Plug in ICA – Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze) par l’artiste philippin canadien Patrick Cruz, gagnant du 17e Concours annuel de peintures canadiennes de RBC en 2015, et “A Greenhouse. Evening.” par l’artiste bien-aimé Winnipégois Ray Fenwick.

Patrick Cruz

Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze)

Du 14 avril au 04 juin 2017

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art est fier de présenter Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze), la première exposition en solo de Patrick Cruz à Winnipeg.

Pour cette exposition, des motifs animés sont peints sur les murs, le planché et la vitrine du Plug In ICA, enveloppant l’espace et ses visiteurs. Ce parcours personnel d’immigration des Philippines au Canada est une histoire tracée à la surface des toiles de Cruz, rendue visible par l’accumulation de lignes, de couleurs et de gestes, empilés et amassés dans une installation immersive. Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze) présente le regard de l’artiste – sa perspective, fusionnée de façon stylisée dans un monde dense et saturé de lignes peintes, de couleurs vives, de collages vidéo et d’objets empilés.

Patrick Cruz est un artiste multidisciplinaire philippin canadien reconnu pour son style de peinture immersif, sa palette de couleurs vives, ses installations d’assemblages et ses lignes gestuelles. Influencé par son expérience de migration au Canada en 2005, Cruz cultive le détritus de la société capitaliste, l’implique en tant qu’acteur dans ses œuvres et y centre ses réflexions sur la mondialisation, le déplacement et la migration. En 2015, Cruz a gagné le 17e concours annuel de peintures canadiennes de RBC. Il a aussi exposé à travers l’Amérique du Nord, en Europe et en Asie avec des expositions récentes à Projet Pangee à Montréal, Centre A à Vancouver, Project 20 à Quezon City aux Philippines et Multiplex à Portland. Ses œuvres sont présentement exposées à la Art Gallery of Alberta et ont été présentées au Mexico Material Art Fair en 2016. En plus de sa pratique en solo, Cruz collabore souvent avec d’autres artistes pour présenter des performances et des projections vidéo. Ses œuvres sont collectionnées par la RBC, la banque TD, ainsi que par des collectionneurs privés à Manille, à Hongkong, à Vancouver, à Calgary, à Toronto, et en Floride.

Ray Fenwick

A Greenhouse. Evening

Du 14 avril au 4 juin 2017

Le titre de l’exposition, “A Greenhouse. Evening.” (Une serre. Soir.) est une description mettant en scène cette exposition solo de Fenwick qui est à la fois une installation élaborée et une performance improvisée.

La «serre» de Fenwick est une structure autonome, placée dans le «soir» – une pièce faiblement éclairée. Cette mise en scène accueille les visiteurs qui sont invités à entrer et à se mettre en contact avec les éléments de l’installation ainsi qu’avec la possibilité d’une conversation. Dans “A Greenhouse. Evening.” Fenwick aborde la définition d’une conversation en poussant ce sujet à une conclusion absurde où les murs parlent et où les plantes peuvent comprendre et pousser.

Ray Fenwick est un artiste interdisciplinaire qui œuvre en performance, en vidéo, en art sonore et en typographie. Connu pour ses performances excentriques, souvent immersives et à longue durée, il explore le langage, la voix et la communication. Ses œuvres de performances se situent à quelque part entre l’humour expérimental et l’art sonore. En plus de ses projets en solo, Fenwick collabore aussi avec l’artiste Mitchell Wiebe sous le nom de Pastoralia, un projet hybride d’art, de performance et de musique qui est le point de rencontre des pratiques artistiques des deux artistes.

Fenwick a complété sa maitrise en beaux-arts à l’Université du Manitoba et a exposé au Canada et aux États-Unis. Pastoralia a donné des prestations dans plusieurs salles inattendues telles que l’ouverture de l’exposition Oh Canada du Mass MoCA, à North Adams Massachusetts, au Nocturne festival d’Halifax et tout récemment au Saltbox performance festival à Terre-Neuve. Ses œuvres ont aussi été exposées à la Galerie Sans Nom à Moncton, à la Grenfell Art Gallery à Corner Brook, à la Southern Alberta Art Gallery à Lethbridge, à la Truck Gallery à Calgary, et au Plug-In ICA à Winnipeg. Cette exposition marque sa première exposition en solo à Winnipeg.

Expositions connexes :

Ray Fenwick: A Greenhouse. Evening.

Patrick Cruz: Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze)

Related exhibits:
Ray Fenwick: A Greenhouse. Evening.
Patrick Cruz: Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze)

Respondent Series Performance | Psychic Materials by Casey Mecija
2017-04-20 19:00 - 20:00
On Thursday, April 20, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art in collaboration with The Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies (U of W), and Queer People of Color (QPOC) presents Psychic Materials, a performance by scholar, musician and performance artist, Casey Mecija.
For her presentation at Plug In ICA, Mecija will draw on her background as a musician in the orchestral pop band Ohbijou and recent solo projects. She will perform amidst Patrick Cruz’s immersive installation Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze) currently on exhibition at Plug In ICA. Mecija and Cruz are linked by a mutual concern with the diasporic experience of migration from the Philippines. Mecija’s performance is sonically informed by her recent solo album Psychic Materials and will use a mash up of video and GIF art, performance, and sound to meditate on “the queer dynamics of diaspora”.
Finding space within aesthetic practice to visualize what she refers to as “queer feelings, Filipina subjectivity and diasporic longing”, Psychic Materials puts forward two propositions: “What is the psychic life of music? What is the soundtrack to diasporic experience?”
Casey Mecija is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in music and film. From 2004 to 2014, Mecija was a writer and singer for the Canadian orchestral pop band, Ohbijou and in 2016 she released her first solo album, Psychic Materials. Mecija was awarded the WIFT-T Award (Women in Film and Television) at the 2013 Reel Asian Film Festival for her short film “My Father, Francis” which screened at Inside Out LGBT Film Festival, Toronto; Mixed Shorts: Local Heroes, Toronto; and the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. In addition to her artistic pursuits, Mecija is actively involved in queer and Filipina organizing. She is currently completing a PhD at The University of Toronto, where she researches art, media and cultural studies as they relate to queer diaspora.
This artist talk is presented as part of Plug In ICA’s Respondent Series, which invites professionals from diverse fields to respond to the themes and subjects addressed in our exhibitions.

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of our 2016 and 2017 program, as well as Payworks and Wawanesa Insurance for the direct support of our youth programs.

Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org
For general information please contact: info@plugin.org. For media inquiries please contact Sarah Nesbitt: sarah@plugin.org.

Related exhibit:
Patrick Cruz: Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze)

Tagalog eksibisyon tour ni Patrick Cruz, 2pm | Artist Talk in English, 3pm
2017-04-15 14:00 - 16:00
Ihinahandog ng Plug In Institute of Contemporary art ang eksibisyong Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze) ang unang solo eksibisyon ni Patrick Cruz sa Winnipeg, kilala sa estilo at pag gamit ng matitingkad na kulay, matatapang na linya sa pagguhit, at mga instalasyon na sumasakop ng espasyo gawa ng kanyang mga likhang-sining. Isang personal na kasaysayan ng imigrasyon mula sa Pilipinas papuntang Canada ay ang kwento na nakaguhit sa mga obra ni Patrick Cruz, sa pamamagitan ng akumulasyon ng linya, kulay at ibatibang estilo sa pagpinta, ito ay isinalansan at pinagsamasama sa isang nakaka-engganyong instalasyon. Nakapaskil sa pader at gumagapang sa sahig ng Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze) ay ang pananaw ng artist – ang kanyang perspektibo na bumubuo ng isang magulo, maingay at masikip na mundo gawa sa mga ginuhit na linya, matitingkad na kulay, mga pinagtagpitagping mga bidyo at mga pinagpatongpatong na mga gamit.
Si Patrick Cruz ay isang Filipino-Canadian artist at organizer na nagtatrabaho sa pagitan ng Vancouver, Toronto at Manila, Philippines. Nagaral siya ng pagpinta sa University of the Philippines Diliman at eskulptura sa Emily Carr University of Art + Design sa Vancouver. Tinapos niya ang kanyang Masters of Fine arts sa University of Guelph etong nakaraang taon. Ang kanyang sining at mga obra ay dala ng kanyang karanasan bilang isang immigrante galing Pilipinas patungong Canada. Siya ay nanalo ng National Prize noong 2015 mula sa 17th annual RBC Canadian Painting Competition.

Related exhibit:
Patrick Cruz: Titig Kayumanggi (Brown Gaze)

Stages Speaker Series: Artist Talk with FASTWÜRMS
2017-04-11 19:00 - 20:00
*New Location- 393 Portage Ave, former Globe Cinema, 3rd floor, Portage Place Shopping Centre
On Tuesday, April 11th at 7pm, Plug In ICA presents an artist talk by Ontario-based collective FASTWÜRMS.
FASTWÜRMS artwork is characterized by a self-described “determined DIY sensibility, Witch Nation identity politics, and a keen allegiance towards working class, queer alliance, and artist collaborations”. They are mainstays within the Canadian art scene and have a long relationship of working with Plug In ICA, including on their 2008 exhibition Donky@Ninja@Witch.
Their Interdisciplinary practice takes on many forms including video, installation, performance and public art. Interweaving punk aesthetics with ancient symbol-ology their immersive installations act as stages for performance and audience interaction. They embrace the lexicon of popular culture witchcraft as a tool to look at issues of identity politics and social interaction.
For their talk, FASTWÜRMS will present their work as it relates to the upcoming public art project, STAGES: Drawing The Curtain – a constellation of site-specific public artworks to be launched through out Winnipeg in August 2017. This large-scale public art project asks artists to locate a site within the city of Winnipeg from which to contemplate the stage – its function as a platform; its meaning as a point of attention; and its physical design. Directed by their individual interests and material preferences, the artists will build sculptural ‘stages’ ranging in shape and form, connected as platforms for audiences to occupy, physically engage with, and contemplate.
Formed in 1979 by multidisciplinary artists Kim Kozzi and Dai Skuse, FASTWÜRMS is known for their diverse immersive practice that explores identity, humour, magic and social exchange. Their practice takes the form of public commissions, installation, video, performance, and drawing. Together they teach studio art at the University of Guelph, Ontario. Their work has been shown extensively in North America and Internationally at venues including the Power Plant (Toronto), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Ontario Art Gallery (Toronto), CIAC (Montréal), Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff), SEQUENCES Festival (Reykjavik, Iceland), Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, Korea) Leokonig Projekte (New York) and the 2006 São Paulo Biennial, Brazil. FASTWÜRMS is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto.

In keeping with the drive of Stages to bring art beyond our walls, all talks forStages Speaker Series will be held at an off-site location: 393 Portage Ave, former Globe Cinema, 3rd floor, Portage Place Shopping Centre
*Artists for Stages: Drawing the Curtain include: Abbas Akhavan (Toronto), Pablo Bronstein (London, UK),FASTWÜRMS (Toronto), Toril Johannessen (Tromsø, Norway), Kara Hamilton (Toronto), Frederico Herrero (San José, Costa Rica), Divya Mehra (Winnipeg), and Krista Belle Stewart (Vancouver).
Stages Speaker Series and Stages: Drawing the Curtain are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts through its New Chapter Program.
Our community partners include Winnipeg Tourism, Alliance Française Manitoba, Urban Ink Design, Portage Place Shopping Centre and Fillip Publishers.

Related exhibit:
STAGES: Drawing the Curtain
