Plug In ICA

STAGES Guided Tour
2019-09-08 14:00 - 16:00 UTC
SEPTEMBER 08 | 2pm
Guided Tour
bike tour of five works (Boisjoly, Buren, Lavallee, Nango, Otto-Knapp); meeting at Plug In ICA
Approximately two hours; Please pre-register for this tour by emailing Rachael@plugin.org
*weather permitting

Annual General Meeting
2019-09-16 17:00 - 18:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Plug In ICA Annual General Meeting
for April, 2018 – March, 2019
Monday, September 16, 2019 | 5pm
At Plug In ICA | 460 Portage Ave, Unit 1

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art will hold its Annual General Meeting on Monday, September 16th at 5PM. Everyone is welcome, but in order to vote you must be a member in good standing (memberships must be paid before the meeting). Memberships may be acquired in the Plug In ICA Bookshop during regular Institute hours or purchased online here.
At the AGM we will present our annual report and audited ﬁnancial statements for the year ending March 31, 2019, and hold an election for the Board of Directors.
AGENDA
1. Welcome from the President of the Board (Sotirios Kotoulas)
2. Approval of Agenda and September 17, 2018 AGM Minutes
3. Presentation of the Annual Report (Jenifer Papararo, Executive Director)
4. Financial Report (Jordan Sodomsky, Treasurer)
5. Equity Committee Report
6. Appointment of Auditor for 2018/2019 ﬁscal year
7. Election
8. Motion to Adjourn

Artist Talk by Stan Douglas
2019-09-27 19:00 - 21:00 | 136 Artlab, University of Manitoba
Artist Talk by Stan Douglas
Offsite at 136 Artlab, University of Manitoba

Stan Douglas: Luanda-Kinshasa | Opening 7-11pm
2019-09-28 19:00 - 23:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Opening in conjunction with Nuit Blanche

Stan Douglas: Luanda-Kinshasa
2019-09-28 19:00 - 2019-12-29 19:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Cam Scott: ROMANS/SNOWMARE launch & reading
2019-10-03 19:00 - 20:30 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Plug In ICA and ARP Books present a launch and reading of Cam Scott’s ROMANS/SNOWMARE

Labour of Love: Digital Economies in the Arts
2019-10-17 - 2019-12-17
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art presents Labour of Love or LOL, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops focused on digital economies of labour in the arts. Taking on the “public course” as a platform for engagement, this program highlights the various ways in which the digital is interrogated, explored, celebrated, pushed to its limit, reworked, re-invented by artists, scholars, curators, writers and others. The course encompasses a full array of events, delving into such topics as coding, circuitbending, VR, AI and AR, gaming, scanning, and 3D printing. Divided into two streams, a lecture and screening series, and workshops, Labour of Love at its most general examines the relationship between the economics of labour and the digital arts as it contends with the conditions of racial capitalism. As a research platform, we aim to build an understanding of the digital by presenting artists who invent new trajectories through various technologies.

More, Less, About the Same | A Video Screening by Alyssa Bornn
2019-10-17 - 2019-11-17
From October 17 to November 17, 2019, Plug In ICA is screening More, Less, About the Same (2019) by Alyssa Bornn in our Breezeway as part of Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops focused on digital economies of labour in the arts. Bornn’s video is a compilation of notebook fragments approximating a confession or the act of confiding of some things about pet death, mothers, houses, monotony, relationships, and/or photography. More, Less, About the Same is written and sequenced on the Videonics Titlemaker 2000. Bornn uses a piece equipment designed to subtitle video input as both a machine for writing as well as a way to animate text and images. Rather than a textual accompaniment to visual input, the artist’s texts are the visual input.

Screening | Videos by Hannah Black
2019-10-17 19:00 - 20:00
On Thursday, October 17, 2019 at 7pm, Plug In ICA presents a screening of videos by Hannah Black to launch Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops focused on digital economies of labour in the arts. Black’s videos highlight the nuance of critical thought, text and prose as they enter the landscape of dream-like excursions that tell of a future-past, or one of an apocalypse to come. As the inaugural event of Labour of Love, Black’s video art grounds us in the use of the digital as a way to experience the possibilities of image-making as tools that guide us toward another imaginary, potent feminist expressions, and poetic timescapes. Black will be joining us in person at Plug In ICA for a keynote address on December 12th, marking the closing event of Labour of Love.

Lecture by Suzanne Kite | November 7 | 7pm
2019-11-07 19:00 - 21:00
Plug In ICA presents a lecture by Kite aka Suzanne Kite as part of “Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts”, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops focused on digital economies of labour in the arts.
Labour of Love or LOL, takes the “public course” as a platform for engagement, this program highlights the various ways in which the digital is interrogated, explored, celebrated, pushed to its limit, reworked, re-invented by artists, scholars, curators, writers and others. The course encompasses a full array of events, delving into such topics as coding, circuit bending, VR, AI and AR, gaming, scanning, and 3D printing. Divided into two streams, a lecture and screening series, and workshops, Labour of Love at its most general examines the relationship between the economics of labour and the digital arts as it contends with the conditions of racial capitalism. As a research platform, we aim to build an understanding of the digital by presenting artists who invent new trajectories through various technologies.

ARP presents a public discussion between BlackLife authors Rinaldo Walcott & Idil Abdillahi
2019-11-11 18:30 - 20:30 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Code, Corals, Capitalism and Curls | A lecture by Carmen Aguilar y Wedge of Hyphen-Labs
2019-11-18 20:00 - 22:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
On Monday, November 18, 2019 at 8pm, Plug In ICA presents a lecture by Carmen Aguilar y Wedge of Hyphen-Labs as part of Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops. Code, Corals, Capitalism and Curls will look at an international approach to tackling issues of the planet, marginalization, power structures, omnipresent technologies, and the end of sleep through capitalism.

IM4 Media Lab Workshop
2019-11-22 10:00 - 2019-11-23 16:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
The workshop is a comprehensive 2-day Intro to VR/AR/360 video workshop that empowers Indigenous students (ages 16-24) with the tools, knowledge, and skills required to create their own live action immersive experiences. It will showcase how Indigenous media creators have used and embraced VR/AR/360 video. Throughout the two days, the instructor will provide a clear understanding to the VR/360 filmmaking process offering tools, knowledge, and on-hand experience to enable students with the skills to create their own VR/360 video project using the new technologies.

IM4 Media Lab Presentation
2019-11-22 18:00 - 20:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
On Friday, November 22, 2019 at 6pm, Plug In ICA presents a lecture by IM4 Media Labs as part of Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops.
Labour of Love or LOL, takes the “public course” as a platform for engagement, this program highlights the various ways in which the digital is interrogated, explored, celebrated, pushed to its limit, reworked, re-invented by artists, scholars, curators, writers and others. The course encompasses a full array of events, delving into such topics as coding, circuit bending, VR, AI and AR, gaming, scanning, and 3D printing. Divided into two streams, a lecture and screening series, and workshops, Labour of Love at its most general examines the relationship between the economics of labour and the digital arts as it contends with the conditions of racial capitalism. As a research platform, we aim to build an understanding of the digital by presenting artists who invent new trajectories through various technologies.

Ali Shamas Qadeer Workshop
2019-12-02 - 2019-12-06 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Ali Shamas Qadeer is a designer and educator based in Toronto. He works in web, print, and web and print. After completing a BA in philosophy and religious studies at McGill University, he developed an independent design practice in New York City before returning to school to complete an MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014. His work focuses on algorithmic formmaking, unorthodox toolmaking, and the disciplinary and economic structures that design practices buttress. After returning to Canada in 2014, Ali joined the faculty of OCADU where he is an Assistant Professor in the graphic and industrial design programs. In his teaching practice, Ali champions a critical approach that always refracts through a practice of formalism and making.
From Monday, December 2 – Friday, December 6, 2019 Ali Shamas Qadeer will be hosting a workshop as part of Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops.

Ali Shamas Qadeer Lecture
2019-12-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Ali Shamas Qadeer is a designer and educator based in Toronto. He works in web, print, and web and print. After completing a BA in philosophy and religious studies at McGill University, he developed an independent design practice in New York City before returning to school to complete an MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014. His work focuses on algorithmic formmaking, unorthodox toolmaking, and the disciplinary and economic structures that design practices buttress. After returning to Canada in 2014, Ali joined the faculty of OCADU where he is an Assistant Professor in the graphic and industrial design programs. In his teaching practice, Ali champions a critical approach that always refracts through a practice of formalism and making.
On Monday, December 2, 2019 at 7pm, Plug In ICA is excited to present a lecture by Ali Shamas Qadeer as part of Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops.

Morehshin Allahyari Lecture
2019-12-05 19:00 - 21:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Morehshin Allahyari (b. 1985 in Tehran, Iran) is a media artist, activist, educator, and curator who uses computer modeling, 3D scanning and digital fabrication techniques to explore the intersection of art and activism. Inspired by concepts of collective archiving, memory, and cultural contradiction, Allahyari’s 3D printed sculptures and videos challenge social and gender norms. She is developing a new body of work on digital colonialism and ‘re-figuring’ as a feminist and decolonialist practice, titled She Who Sees the Unknown. Researching female monsters, jinn and dark goddesses of Middle-Eastern origin, Allahyari devises narratives through practices of magic and poetic-speculative storytelling, re-appropriation of traditional mythologies, collaging, meshing, scanning, and archiving.
On Thursday, December 5, 2019 at 7pm, Plug In ICA is excited to present a lecture by Morehshin Allahyari as part of Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops.

Soft Nails ~ ♥[ASMR] Kleincomputer Robotron KC87 ♥ | A Video Screening by Nadja Buttendorf
2019-12-06 - 2020-03-06
Plug In ICA is screening Soft Nails ~ ♥[ASMR] Kleincomputer Robotron KC87 ♥ by Nadja Buttendorf in our Breezeway as part of Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops. The video will be on display until March 6, 2020.
The KC stands for Kleincomputer, in English, literally small computer. Released in 1987 in the GDR by VEB Robotron-Meßelektronik”Otto Schön” Dresden. Originally, the KC 87 was intended as a home computer (HC) for private households. Due to a lack of resources, however, the KC87 was only in use as an educational computer in educational institutions.
ASMR, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, is a net cultural form of physical stimulation through whispering and soft sounds that has developed and spread on the largest online platform YouTube. The listeners and viewers find the tingling on the skin, triggered by those very soft noises, very pleasant. The sight of bent fingernails, on the other hand, is often perceived as unpleasant. In Soft Nails, artificial fingernails made of silicone reinforce the viewer’s reaction. The typical noises of ASMR videos are complemented by this visually irritating stimulus.
Throughout the video, Buttendorf whispers the information about the KC87. In most ASMR videos only current high-tech utensils appear to evoke tingles. In Soft Nails, Buttendorf deliberately uses high-tech from the GDR and transforms it into a pop cultural format. This video work is a satellite project for the web series Robotron – a tech opera.

Hannah Black Keynote Address
2019-12-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Prominent artist, writer and critic, Hannah Black studied English Literature at Cambridge University before completing an MFA in Art Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. She then participated in Whitney’s Independent Study program. Black has published two books, Life (2017), in collaboration with Juliana Huxtable, and Dark Pool Party (2016). Along with Ciarán Finlayson, and Tobi Haslett, Black was the co-author of the seminal article in Artforum, “The Teargas Biennial.” She has screened and shown in exhibitions across Europe and the United States most recently at Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art; Sharjah Biennial 14; Performance Space New York; Real Fine Arts, New York; Centre D’Art Contemporain, Geneva; Chisenhale Gallery, London UK; mumok, Vienna; Arcadia Missa, Paris; and New Museum Theatre, New York.
On Thursday, December 12, 2019 at 7pm, Plug In ICA is excited to present a lecture by Hannah Black as part of Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops.

Holiday Closure
2019-12-23 - 2019-12-26
Plug In will be closed December 24, 25, 26

Galleries and shop closed between exhibitions
2019-12-30 - 2020-01-23
Our galleries and shop will be closed during installation

Chen Zhe: Towards Evenings
2020-01-24 - 2020-03-22

Hyphen-Labs: NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism
2020-01-24 - 2020-03-22

Catherine Opie: The Modernist & Kandis Friesen: The Cedar, The Birch, Our Hands At Full-Mast, Behind The After
2020-06-10 13:00 - 2020-08-22 17:00
Open by appointment June 10 – August 22, 2020. Appointments are available Wednesday – Saturday from 1-4pm, please contact info@plugin.org or 204-942-1043 to schedule your visit.
Solo Exhibition | The Modernist by Catherine Opie | June 10 – August 22, 2020

Solo Exhibition | The Cedar, The Birch, Our Hands At Full-Mast, Behind The After by Kandis Friesen | June 10 – August 22, 2020

Artist Talk by Catherine Opie
2020-07-23 18:00 - 20:00 | Online Event
Plug In ICA would like to extend a warm welcome to join us on Thursday, July 23 at 6PM CT for an online Artist Talk by Catherine Opie.
The talk will begin with a screening of Opie’s The Modernist after which Opie will discuss her career from the early 1990s until today focusing on her most recent works, The Modernist (2017) & Swamps and Political Collages (2019). The talk will be followed by a Q+A moderated by Jenifer Papararo.
Link to Live Stream

Catherine Opie was born in Sandusky, OH in 1961 and received her B.F.A. from San Francisco Art Institute and a M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts. Since 2001, she has been a professor of photography at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Her work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions worldwide. Selected solo exhibitions include Keeping an Eye on the World, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo (2017); 700 Nimes Road, MOCA Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles (2016); Portraits, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Portraits and Landscapes, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2015); Empty and Full, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2011); Figure and Landscape, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2010); American Photographer, Guggenheim Museum, New York (2008); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2006); and Skyways and Icehouses, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2002); among others.
Opie has received numerous awards, including the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Medal (2016); Julius Shulman Excellence in Photography Award (2013); Women’s Caucus for Art: President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement (2009); United States Artists Fellowship (2006); Larry Aldrich Award (2004); Washington University Freund Fellowship (1999); and the Citibank Private Bank Emerging Artist Award (1997).
Work by the artist is included in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; among others.
She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
All public programming is free and open to the public.

Associated Programming
May There Always Be Sunshine (The Wind And The Void) | Artist Talk by Kandis Friesen | Tuesday, August 18, 2020 | 6PM CT
Solo Exhibition | The Modernist by Catherine Opie | June 10 – August 22, 2020
Solo Exhibition | The Cedar, The Birch, Our Hands At Full-Mast, Behind The After by Kandis Friesen | June 10 – August 22, 2020
This artist talk is presented in conjunction with Catherine Opie’s solo exhibition at Plug In ICA on view from June 10 – August 22, 2020. The artist talk is a co-presentation with Centre for Research in Cultural Studies at the University of Winnipeg (CRiCS), Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA), and Winnipeg Architecture Foundation.

May There Always Be Sunshine (The Wind And The Void) | Artist Talk by Kandis Friesen
2020-08-18 18:00 - 20:00 | Online Event
Please join us on August 18th at 6PM CT for May There Always Be Sunshine (The Wind And The Void), an online artist talk by Kandis Friesen.
Link to Live Stream
The flag says this, this motto, like a state greeting card to the child on the event of every sunrise of each year. The epic is always dawning, and we arise to its awakening, follow in its flow. This is the ghost we are surrounded by – this sunshine, the wind, and the void.
Working with text between language, image, and object, Kandis Friesen presents an artist lecture on construction and collage, moving along paths of making and thinking that reside on the edges, in movements and movement, in exiled and exhilarated states. Drawing on the practices of unofficial artists in her extended family, the work of Moscow conceptualist and other Soviet artists, and the use of grafting and montage in a range of other practices, Friesen will speak about installation, virtuality, and diaspora. Her research and methods work in parallel with such practices, where citation becomes a kind of collective literature, a writing-into the world. This is a work of constant translation and transposition, where the replica and the copy, the echo and the choir develop as central modes. Such a relay brings together histories not yet written, art works not yet named, and monuments and memories not yet formed: resistant to the solid and committed to dispersal. This commitment is a diasporic site-specificity – the connected dispersal as site – allowing ideas, objects, actions and texts to remain contiguous across expansive realms.
There is a secret, and I don’t let on. I’m ready for the knowing. It is about balance, poise, and waiting. I know there is an inside and an outside, the entrance vague but understood. The untethered is the ethos here, tethered only to other untethered, so that the choir’s voice is both the ship and the sail.

Kandis Friesen’s work is anchored in diasporic language, dispersed translations, and disintegrating archival forms. Often circulating as video, sculpture, installation, and writing, her compositions build from architectural, material, and spectral inhabitations of exile, amplifying minute and myriad histories at once. Her work has been exhibited and screened at LUX (London, UK), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, US), Chicago Architecture Biennial (Chicago, US), TRUCK Contemporary (Calgary, CA), Art Gallery of Hamilton (Hamilton, CA), FIFA (Montreal, CA), WNDX (Winnipeg, CA), MIX NYC (NYC, US), Athens Digital Arts Festival (Athens, GR), and Jihlava International Film Festival (Jihlava, CZ), among others. She has received grants and awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, CALQ, the Images Festival Steamwhistle Award (with Nahed Mansour, 2012), Best Canadian Work at WNDX (2018), and the Brucebo Art Foundation Travel Research Grant (2019). Her video works are distributed by Groupe Intervention Vidéo in Montreal.
All public programming is free and open to the public.

Associated Programming
Artist Talk by Catherine Opie | Thursday, July 23, 2020 | 6PM CT
Co-presentation with Centre for Research in Cultural Studies University of Winnipeg (CRiCS), MAWA, and the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation.

Solo Exhibition | The Modernist by Catherine Opie | June 10 – August 22, 2020
Solo Exhibition | The Cedar, The Birch, Our Hands At Full-Mast, Behind The After by Kandis Friesen | June 10 – August 22, 2020

Plug In ICA Annual General Meeting
2020-09-21 18:00 - 20:00

Exhibition: of سندباد and sandbox by Gelare Khoshgozaran
2020-09-26 12:00 - 2020-12-20 17:00

Exhibition: Sovereign Intimacies
2020-09-26 12:00 - 2020-12-20 17:00

Exhibition: Lori Blondeau | I'm Not Your Kinda Princess
2021-03-11 12:00 - 2021-07-31 17:00
