Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art and Publication Studio Vancouver launch Yesterday Was Once Tomorrow, Edited by Kegan McFadden
2018-03-02 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Manitoba
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art and Publication Studio Vancouver launch Yesterday Was Once Tomorrow, Edited by Kegan McFadden
March 2, 2018 – 7pm

Plug In ICA and Publication Studio Vancouver present:
Yesterday was Once Tomorrow (or, A Brick is a Tool):
Magazines by artists in Canada during the 1990s
Edited by Kegan McFadden • Published by Plug In Editions (Winnipeg) with Publication Studio (Vancouver) • Translation provided by Artexte (Montreal) • Foreword by Gwen L. Allen • Introduction by Jenifer Papararo • Insert by Cube
Vancouver Launch: Friday March 2, 2018 | 7pm
Selectors’ Records/ Publication Studio Vancouver
8 E Pender St, Vancouver BC
~talk ~ slide show ~ 90s music ~ turntables ~

On Friday, March 2, 2018 at 7pm Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art and Publication Studio Vancouver are excited to launch Yesterday was Once Tomorrow (or, A Brick is a Tool). The Vancouver launch will take place at Selector Records/Publication Studio Vancouver. Join Publication Studio for a festive evening including a talk by editor Kegan McFadden with a slideshow illuminating the book, and 90s music. At Plug In ICA the book will be available for a 25% discount from March 2 to 9 in our Book Shop.
Drawing on a methodology of exhibition-as-research, Yesterday was Once Tomorrow (or, A Brick is a Tool). extends a process of investigation by artist, writer, and curator Kegan McFadden. As an exhibition, Yesterday was Once Tomorrow (or, A Brick is a Tool) acts as a historical look at magazines by artists in Canada that were established and terminated in the 1990s. Specifically focusing on Texts (Calgary, 1989-1993), Flower (Toronto, 1992-1996), Talking Stick First Nations Arts Magazine (Regina, 1993-1994), Boo (Vancouver, 1994-1998), The Harold (Winnipeg, 1995-1997), and Cube (Montreal, 1996-1998),Yesterday was Once Tomorrow (or, A Brick is a Tool), debuted at Plug In ICA (2015), and toured to Artexte (2016) and The Banff Centre (2017). The archival impulse is continued in book form, efficiently capturing an under-explored moment in Canadian art history, situated critically within the global technological context of pre-Internet desktop publishing.
Included, in English and French, is a central essay by McFadden reflecting on his curatorial approach and methodology while the main body of the book operates in a similar manner to the exhibition, consolidating the magazines as content and material. Brief recollections from those involved with each of the six magazines coincide with an index chronicling their output, while covers of every issue are scanned and reproduced for posterity. A prescient essay about the state of art criticism in Canada by Bruce Grenville is re-printed thirty years after it originally appeared, followed by a newly commissioned response from Jeanne Randolph, in addition to artist projects and other poetic excerpts from each of the publications. Yesterday was Once Tomorrow (or, A Brick is a Tool) concludes with an archival gesture – the cataloguing of works included in each iteration of the exhibition.
For more information about the publication, or to pre-order a copy of Yesterday was Once Tomorrow (or, A Brick is a Tool), contact: Erin Josephson-Laidlaw aterin@plugin.org.

Softback
200 pages
1 Color poster insert
16.3 cm x 22.9cm
ISBN: 978-1-927385-48-7
$40

DISTRIBUTION
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art
Unit 1–460 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3C 0E8 • plugin.org •info@plugin.org • 1.204.942.1043
https://shop.plugin.org/products/yesterday-was-once-tomorrow-or-a-brick-is-a-tool-magazines-by-artists-in-canada-during-the-1990s
Publication Studio Vancouver
8 E Pender St, Vancouver BC Canada V6A 1T1 • bookmachine.ca or publicationstudio.biz • psvancouver@publicationstudio.biz • 1.604.836.0865

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

Skeena Reece: Sweetgrass and Honey | Visite guidée en français avec Janelle Tougas
2018-03-03 15:00 - 16:00 | Manitoba
Skeena Reece: Sweetgrass and Honey | Visite guidée en français avec Janelle Tougas
March 3, 2018 – 3pm

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art présente :
Une visite guidée de notre exposition d’hiver, Skeena Reece: Sweetgrass and Honey avec Janelle Tougas
Le 3 mars 2018 à 15h.
Skeena Reece est connue pour sa performance humoristique dans laquelle est incarne toute une gamme de personnages. Souvent critique et perçante, elle est motivée par le potentiel d’un échange brut avec l’auditoire. Pour son exposition en solo Sweetgrass and Honey (Foin d’odeur et miel), elle rajoute à son lexique de personnages, joue avec les clichés et renforce les stéréotypes tout en tentant sincèrement de déterrer leurs origines et de faire obstacle à leur pérennisation. Du syndrome de Stockholm à la «princesse indienne», Reece adresse plusieurs sujets afin de construire une lentille par laquelle examiner son histoire personnelle dans une relecture du déplacement et de l’indifférence continuelle accordée aux peuples autochtones de l’Amérique du Nord.
– Commissaire de l’exposition : Jenifer Papararo
BIO :
Skeena Reece est une artiste Tsimshian/Gitksan et Crie basée sur la côté ouest de la Colombie-Britannique. Elle a attiré l’attention nationale et internationale pour Raven: On the Colonial Fleet (2010), une puissante performance et installation présentée dans le cadre de l’exposition de groupe Beat Nation. Dans sa pratique artistique multidisciplinaire on retrouve de la performance, de la création parlée, de l’humour, du «sacred clowning», de l’écriture, du chant, de l’écriture de chanson, de la vidéo et de l’art visuel. Elle a fait des études en arts médiatiques à la Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design et est récipiendaire du British Columbia Award for Excellence in the Arts (2012) et du Viva Award (2014). Pour sa contribution au film Savage (2010) en collaboration avec Lisa Jackson, Reece gagne un Genie Award pour le meilleur court métrage, le Golden Sheaf Award pour le meilleur film multiculturel, le ReelWorld Outstanding Canadian Short Film, et le prix de la meilleure comédienne et du meilleur montage aux Leo Awards. Elle a aussi participé à la 17e Biennale de Sydney en Australie. Parmi ses expositions récentes on retrouve The Sacred Clown & Other Strangers, une exposition en solo des costumes et la documentation de ses performance à Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art à Winnipeg (2015), et Moss à la galerie Oboro à Montréal (2017). Une itération de Sweetgrass and Honey sera exposée à la Comox Valley Art Gallery.
Plug In ICA tient à reconnaitre le soutien continu du Conseil des arts du Canada, du Conseil des arts du Manitoba et du Conseil des arts de Winnipeg. Nous adressons aussi un remerciement particulier à notre conseil d’administration, nos chers membres et nos bénévoles dévoués.
Related exhibit:
Skeena Reece: Sweetgrass and Honey

Respondent Series Talk: Cora Morgan, First Nations Family Advocate on the Current State of Child Welfare in Manitoba
2018-03-08 19:00 - 20:00 | Manitoba
Respondent Series Talk: Cora Morgan, First Nations Family Advocate on the Current State of Child Welfare in Manitoba
March 8, 2018 – 7pm

Programmed as part of our winter solo exhibition Sweetgrass and Honey by Skeena Reece, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is extremely honored to host a Respondent Series talk by First Nations Family Advocate, Cora Morgan on Thursday, March 8, at 7pm.
In 2015, when Morgan began her work as advocate for the newly formed Assembly of Manitoba Chief’s First Nations Family Advocate Office, there were more than 10,000 children in care in Manitoba, with roughly 90 percent of those children being Indigenous. Current numbers are closer to 11,000 and growing. The astonishing rate at which children are being taken from their families is cause for great alarm.
With immediate and urgent links to central themes addressed in Skeena Reece’s exhibition, for her talk, Morgan will speak to the present-day reality of child welfare in Manitoba, as well as make links between contemporary policies and those that formed the Residential School System in Canada, and their intergenerational effects. Morgan will moreover outline ways in which the justice system, and Child and Family Services (CFS) entrench and enable the current conditions. She will speak about her work as First Nations Family Advocate, including the importance of asserting jurisdiction over, and operating outside of the Child Welfare System. With stories and anecdotal evidence, Morgan will move between structural analysis, advocacy initiatives and lived experience to create a multi-faceted picture of what we are facing as a society.

Cora Morgan is a First Nations mother from Sagkeeng First Nation. Her most cherished role in life is being a mother, and she is very passionate about the well being of children.
Professionally, Morgan is the First Nations Family Advocate for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs First Nations Family Advocate Office, which opened June 1, 2015 and is the first of its kind in Canada. Cora studied Native Studies and Economic Development from the University of Manitoba, and spent much of her career in leadership roles working in Employment Training and Economic Development. Eventually her interests and career choices lead her towards restorative justice, and an eight-year term as Executive Director of Onashowewin Justice Circle. Morgan brings a commitment to understanding the intergenerational effects of residential schools and links to current issues with foster care. Identifying a direct link between the Manitoba Child and Family Services and the justice system is what specifically motivates her in her current role as First Nations Family Advocate.

All public programming is free and open to the public. Everyone welcome!
This talk is programmed in conjunction with Skeena Reece: Sweetgrass and Honey | January 19 – March 18, 2018.
Upcoming Programs:
Thursday, March 15 | 7pm
Respondent Series Workshop with Artist Ray Fenwick: “Experimental Conversation & Semi-accidental Performance” To register please contactsarah@plugin.org

Part survey, the exhibition Sweetgrass and Honey recontextualizes some of Skeena Reece’s earlier video and photographic projects, within a new body of work that uses Plug In ICA as a place of political address to rewrite and acknowledge how we have come to occupy the land we are on.
Reece is best known for her critically penetrating and humorous performances, in which she portrays a range of personas that are often driven by the potential of a raw exchange with audiences. For Sweetgrass and Honey, she builds on her lexicon of characters at times ramping up the clichés and emboldening stereo-types while sincerely trying to unearth their origins and stonewall their continued perpetuation. From Stockholm Syndrome to Indian Princesses, Reece uses various subjects in building a new lens with which to examine her personal history within a rereading of the displacement and continued disregard of Indigenous people in North America.
For more information on Reece and her exhibition please visit:https://plugin.org/exhibitions/2018/skeena-reece-sweetgrass-and-honey to access the complete list of works and read the curatorial essay written by Jenifer Papararo.

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our artists, 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 and the RBC foundation for their support of our 2018 and 2019 Summer Institutes.
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 telephone at (204) 942-1043.
Related exhibit:
Skeena Reece: Sweetgrass and Honey

International Call for Applications: Summer Institute Session I • DIS: “Thumbs that Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network”
2018-03-10 | Manitoba
International Call for Applications: Summer Institute Session I • DIS: “Thumbs that Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network”

March 5, 2018 – 6pm

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is honoured to announce two exciting opportunities for our 2018 Summer Institute post-graduate research program.
Session I, June 25 – July 6, 2018: “Thumbs that Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network” with acclaimed curatorial and media artists, DIS, facilitated by Marco Roso and collaborators. Application deadline: March 5, 2018
Session II, August 6-24, 2018: “Site/ation” by BUSH gallery facilitated by celebrated trio of artists, writers, educators and curators, Tania Willard, Peter Morin, and Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill. Application deadline: March 10, 2018
Both sessions are invested in alternative frameworks and sites for curatorial and exhibition research and practice; with corollary interests in labour, including systems of value and exchange.

Plug In ICA Summer Institute Session I:
June 25- July 6, 2018
DIS: “Thumbs that Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network”
A guide for this brave new world that might help us understand how to be and how to live, love, and work in our bodies in this techno-capitalist context. – Marco Roso
For Session I of our Summer Institute research program, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is pleased to present DIS. Over the duration of the Institute Marco Roso and collaborators will facilitate “Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network”. The session will be grounded in discussions that centre on media and the visual arts; offering directed, one-on-one conversations with Roso and guests, as well as group activities that privilege participants and their ongoing work.
The seminar circles around a series of exhibitions organized by DIS and framed by dis.art, a new streaming edutainment platform. Through direct engagement with the artists of dis.art, the session will contemplate a series of linked concerns, including: the nature of belonging in a rootless-seeming, networked world; the changing relationship to the ways one owns, lends or gives time through occupations, bodies, or other forms of value-creation. Some of the topics DIS will covered will be: Money: what is it?; information consumption; the future of citizenship; reparations; love and humor.
Participants will engage in a series of exercises and activities in response to the themes of the Institute. These will range in form and approach, and may include the production of short videos, bike rides, city walks, screenings and guest lectures. Participants will be encouraged to produce individual work generated through our collective thinking and peer-to-peer engagement. The workshop is open to visual artists of all kinds as well as writers, critics and scholars.
DIS is a New York based collective best known for DIS Magazine (2010-2017), and curating the 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2016). DIS has become an umbrella for a number of networked and collaborative platforms – all of which reimagine one format or another.
Today DIS is focused on dis.art. While remaining true to the novel approaches to critical inquiry that defined life as a magazine, DIS is now focused on redefining entertainment and education through the new streaming platform on dis.art.
DIS enlists writers, filmmakers, and artists to offer new forms of genre-bending edutainment that help cut through the atomization and polarization that defines the noisy, disjointed mediasphere. In the last century, public television programming meant that quality information, education and artistic formats could go hand in hand.

To apply, please download our application form (attatched). For more information contact Sarah Nesbitt: sarah@plugin.org
Applications must be sent by email to Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org by 6pm central standard time on March 5, 2018 for Session I (DIS), and by March 10th for Session II (BUSH).
Please indicate which Summer Institute session you are applying for in the subject line. Space is limited. Travel and accommodation are the responsibility of the participant. For BUSH gallery, participants will be camping together.

International Call for Applications: Summer Institute Session II • BUSH gallery “Site/ation”
2018-03-10 10:00 - 18:00 | Manitoba
International Call for Applications: Summer Institute Session II • BUSH gallery “Site/ation”

March 10, 2018

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is honoured to announce two exciting opportunities for our 2018 Summer Institute post-graduate research program.
Session I, June 25 – July 6, 2018: “Thumbs that Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network” with acclaimed curatorial and media artists, DIS, facilitated by Marco Roso and collaborators. Application deadline: March 5, 2018
Session II, August 6-24, 2018: “Site/ation” by BUSH gallery facilitated by celebrated trio of artists, writers, educators and curators, Tania Willard, Peter Morin, and Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill. Application deadline: March 10, 2018
Both sessions are invested in alternative frameworks and sites for curatorial and exhibition research and practice; with corollary interests in labour, including systems of value and exchange.

Plug In ICA Summer Institute Session II:
August 6-24, 2018
BUSH gallery: “Site/ation”
For Session II of our Summer Institute, post-graduate research program, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is excited to partner with BUSH gallery. Over three weeks, from August 6-24, Tania Willard, Peter Morin and Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill will lead Site/ation, pushing a radical approach to curating and art making, born from active engagements and lived experiences on the land, land marking, contemporary art, the reserve, and the gallery. Using Indigenous methodologies to build a transformational space, that is open to everyone, BUSH seeks to de-centre the gallery, and the city as epicentres of contemporary art.
BUSH gallery Project Statement:
BUSH gallery acknowledges the Indigenous Nations that have ancestral ties to the Treaty 1 Territory and the Métis Nation homeland. As uninvited guests,* we strive to connect what we are doing as Indigenous artists with valuing and circulating within local Indigenous economies and communities, while also creating space for conceptual, experimental and performative land-based Indigenous led contemporary art. By practicing reciprocity and value-based systems of Indigenous knowledges, centred by our specific cultural backgrounds, we make galleries of thought, colour, land, sky, text and interrelationality.
The 2018 summer intensive with Plug In ICA enacts ideas of site/ation. How are we influenced, challenged, changed and politically tied to the lands in our communities and in our orbits. Participants will camp on the land together, read relevant texts, go for walks on the land, dream new relationships, and will research and learn by making and doing.
Using art as strategy to guide resources and value Indigenous led spaces that acknowledge the land as the first gallery, as our gallery as BUSH gallery we will come together to laugh, to make, to eat and to conjure ideas and dreams that will feed the ancestors.
Artists, curators and writers from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply, but preference will go to QBIPOC (Queer, Black, Indigenous, People of Color) applicants. Deadline is March 10, 2018, 6pm Central Standard Time.
BUSH gallery functions as a space that allows for dialogue, experimental practice and community engaged work that contributes to an understanding of how gallery systems and art might be transfigured, translated and transformed by Indigenous customs, aesthetics, performance and land use systems. BUSH gallery is a trans-conceptual galleryspace. Trans-conceptual repositions ideas born within Indigenous and western epistemological conditions. The trans-conceptual space requires your body to be in a constant state of flux. Never settling like the flow of water in a river. One of the goals of BUSH gallery is to articulate Indigenous creative land practices, which are born out of a lived connection to the land.

* When we use ‘uninvited guest’ it means we acknowledge that due to dispossession of Indigenous lands and territories across Canada we operate outside of protocols that would make the local territory we are visiting within the authority of the traditional Indigenous land rights holder.

To apply, please download our application form (attatched). For more information contact Sarah Nesbitt: sarah@plugin.org
Applications must be sent by email to Sarah Nesbitt at sarah@plugin.org by 6pm central standard time on March 5, 2018 for Session I (DIS), and by March 10th for Session II (BUSH).
Please indicate which Summer Institute session you are applying for in the subject line. Space is limited. Travel and accommodation are the responsibility of the participant. For BUSH gallery, participants will be camping together.

Plug In ICA extends our heartfelt gratitude to our generous donors, valued members, and dedicated volunteers. You make a difference.
We sincerely thank the RBC Foundation for the direct support of our Summer Institutes.
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.
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

File Download

BUSH application form

EXPERIMENTAL CONVERSATION AND SEMI-ACCIDENTAL PERFORMANCE | A Respondent Series Workshop by Ray Fenwick
2018-03-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Manitoba
EXPERIMENTAL CONVERSATION AND SEMI-ACCIDENTAL PERFORMANCE | A Respondent Series Workshop by Ray Fenwick
Thursday, March 15, 2018 – 7pm

Every conversation is an experiment — and some conversations are more experimental than others. Some conversations are like performances, or games, or music, or a collaborative soundscape.
~ Ray Fenwick

Simple, fun, and often ridiculous! Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is excited to host a Respondent Series workshop: EXPERIMENTAL CONVERSATION AND SEMI-ACCIDENTAL PERFORMANCE by artist Ray Fenwick.
Programmed in conjunction with Skeena Reece’s exhibition, Sweetgrass and Honey, over the course of one and a half hours participants will engage in collective linguistic experimentation, contorting sound and elemental aspects of conversation, which begin to shift in form and experience between ‘just talking’, ‘performing’, or ‘making art’.
As easy as saying your name! Almost by accident you’ll dip a toe into the world of performance by way of simple games shamelessly stolen from theatre, improvisation, and so-called “icebreaker” activities.
Other “goals” of the workshop:
– Not just break the ice but, through a form of alchemy, turn the ice into a very pleasing slime
– Find new and strange ways to speak to each other, with each other, or out loud
– Make each other laugh
– Make yourself feel weird
– Fail miserably and awkwardly a few times
– Have a few drinks maybe, if that’s your thing

Spaces are limited. RSVP REQUIRED – email Sarah Nesbitt @ sarah@plugin.orgwith “RSVP” in the title line.

Ray Fenwick is an interdisciplinary artist working in performance, video, sound and typography. Known for eccentric, often immersive and durational performances that explore language, voice, and communication, his performance work lies somewhere between experimental comedy and sound art. In addition to his solo work, Fenwick collaborates with Halifax-based artist Mitchell Wiebe in Pastoralia, an art, performance, and music hybrid that acts as a meeting point between the practices of the two artists. Fenwick completed his MFA Degree at the University of Manitoba and has exhibited in both Canada and the United States. Pastoralia has performed at unexpected venues including the opening of Mass MoCA’s Oh Canada exhibition, North Adams Massachusetts; Halifax’s Nocturne festival; and at the recent Saltboxperformance festival in Newfoundland. His work has also been exhibited in Galerie Sans Nom, Moncton; Grenfell Art Gallery, Corner Brook; Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; Truck Gallery, Calgary; and Plug-In ICA, Winnipeg.

Plug In ICA extends our heartfelt gratitude to our generous donors, valued members, and dedicated volunteers. You 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.
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:
Skeena Reece: Sweetgrass and Honey

Przemek Pyszczek: Białystok
2018-03-29 12:00 - 2018-06-10 18:00 | Manitoba
Przemek Pyszczek: Białystok
March 29, 2018 to June 10, 2018

Powder-coated colours of steel-poles shape a centralized geometric form inBiałystok – Przemek Pyszczek’s first solo exhibition in Canada. Heavily influenced by the architectural and civic structures from his birth town Białystok in Poland, Pyszczek builds a colourful, sprawling and unified sculpture that simultaneously captures a conformity and resistance to public housing infra-structures in Communist Poland, which turned from grey into an explosion of colour post the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Pyszczek’s palette is compiled from these colourful reprisals of civic space as residential concrete blocks were painted in an array of pastel hues with the structure of his sculptures based on architectural details. The lattice of hand railings, the flourishes in balcony designs and the patterning of fencing and other public to private barriers are references for Pyszczek abstracted forms. The shape comes first and then colour is applied – reflective of the artist’s own encounter with Białystok, as a measuring of time and an articulation of history.
The exhibition title is itself nostalgic in alluding to the artist’s birthplace, his childhood before his family immigrated to Winnipeg, Canada and before his return to Poland after the collapse of communism. This reflection on his childhood home is mediated and doubled in the formal construction of the exhibition, which is an allusion and amalgamation of vintage playground jungle gyms. The form is rigid yet twisted – narrowly escaping the childhood filter of a colourless past retuned as an out-pouring of collective colours.
Przemek Pyszczek is a Polish-born, Canadian-raised artist who is currently based in Berlin. Through architecturally inspired sculptures, installations and paintings Pyszczek’s work traces Poland’s transition since the fall of the iron curtain and also serves as an ongoing journey to rediscover his own past. He obtained his Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Manitoba in 2007. Pyszczek’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions, most recently presenting a solo exhibition at Galerie Derouillon, Paris. His work has been included in Forever Never Comes, Museo Archeologico e d’Arte della Maremma, Grosseto, Italy; 1989 Belenius, Stockholm; Sandomir, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles; Industrius, Window Gallery, Winnipeg; Building Systems, Berthold Pott, Cologne; and Corporalitas, Open Forum, Berlin.

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa: Shit-Baby and The Crumpled Giraffe
2018-03-29 12:00 - 2018-06-10 18:00 | Manitoba
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa: Shit-Baby and The Crumpled Giraffe

March 29, 2018 to June 10, 2018

Shit-Baby and the Crumpled Giraffe is an exquisite display of Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa’s characteristic penchant towards humor, abjection, and performance as he transforms bodily action into object form . For his solo exhibition at Plug In ICA, Ramirez-Figueroa immerses the viewer in a theatrical space where the fantastical meets a corporeal reality. He sets a stage through a series of sculptural forms painstakingly constructed out of Styrofoam, revealing an imaginary and infantile world.
Exploiting an interest in the function and training of the body that is most acutely encountered in childhood, for this presentation at Plug In ICA, Shit-Baby and the Crumpled Giraffe will be adapted from its recent incarnation at the Kunsthalle Lissabon in Portugal (Fall 2017). Invited into the exhibition through a scattering of objects , viewers encounter imperfect colored vessels arranged in careful clusters, and dispersed amidst small piles of “beautifully sculpted poo”. One deviant strand hovers serpent-like – fantastical and ominous, airborne amidst a human-sized giraffe; a sneaker-wearing pelican carrying a sack of feces; and a seated naked toddler.
Nafus Ramírez Figueroa is a Guatemalan-born, Berlin-based artist. Working in sculpture, performance, video, installation and printmaking, Figueroa’s work is grounded in mechanisms and conditions of colonialism worldwide, with specific investment in Guatemalan history. Receiving ongoing support from Corpus (2015-present), Figueroa has engaged in a series of performances that he describes as an “attempt to exhaust my interest into the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1990)”. The weight of his subjects is often tempered by a playful material sensibility, forays into childhood, dreams, fantasy and the complexity of embodiment. Figueroa holds a BFA from Emily Carr University, Vancouver with a specialization in media art, and an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has garnered international acclaim, with notable inclusions in Viva Arte Viva, 57th Venice Biennale 2017; Incerteza viva, 32nd São Paulo Biennale, 2016; Burning Down the House, 10th Gwangju Biennale, 2014 and in 2016, he was a resident artist at DAAD, in Berlin. He also has strong ties to Canada, where his work was featured on the cover of FUSE Magazine in 2013 and in 2018-19 Figueroa will present three major solo exhibitions in Canada, at Grunt Gallery, Vancouver; the Audain Gallery, Vancouver; and Plug In ICA, Winnipeg.

Respondent Series Talk with Art City’s Directors, Eddie Ayoub and Josh Ruth | Wednesday, May 23, 2018 • 7pm
2018-05-23 19:00 - 20:00 | Manitoba
Respondent Series Talk with Art City’s Artistic Director, Eddie Ayoub and Managing Director, Josh Ruth

Wednesday, May 23, 2018 • 7pm

As part of our ongoing Respondent Series, on Wednesday, May 23, 7pm Art City Directors, Eddie Ayoub and Josh Ruth will speak about the history and mandate of Art City, one of Canada’s most dynamic and exciting community art centres.
We are hosting this presentation and discussion about Art City within the context of our current exhibitions Shit-Baby and the Crumpled Giraffe by Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, and Białystok by Przemek Pyszczek to respond to shared themes of youth and childhood. Within Ramírez-Figueroa’s installation, themes of child psychology and the condition of embodiment of youth are explored in his sculptural installation and video. Whereas in Białystok by Pyszczek simple sculptural forms evoke unstructured play that reference early childhood playground forms. For this talk, Ayoub and Ruth will give an overview of the history and programming of Art City addressing their approach to youth education and community art programming, thinking about how play can be a radical tool for education, community development, confidence and self empowerment.
Founded in the West Broadway neighbourhood in 1998 by Contemporary artist Wanda Koop, Art City was created and runs on the premise that “community art programming should be accessible to all”. With a focus on children and youth, Art City runs free programming six days a week. Each day has a specific focus including film photo, ceramics and digital arts; Wednesday’s is the drawing club, and Saturday’s are dedicated to Indigenous arts practices. Guest artists come from Winnipeg, Canada, and abroad to facilitate specialized workshops renewing the interests of artists and youth, while local facilitators also create larger-scale projects that build over a period of a week or a month. Every spring staff and youth organize a much-anticipated parade. A spectacle for the whole neighbourhood, with children and adults moving through the streets holding balloons, wearing masks and elaborate costumes, riding floats or holding banners. Art City is an exciting presence that stimulates the imagination and activates the city.

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

REMAINING ASSOCIATED PROGRAMMING
Sunday, June 10 | 3pm
Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth screening and panel discussion
Date: TBD
Respondent Series: Play As Radical Practice Toolkit

REMAINING ASSOCIATED PROGRAMMING
Sunday, June 10 | 3pm
Interpreting [Interrupting] Youth screening and panel discussion
Date: TBD
Respondent Series: Play As Radical Practice Toolkit

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our artists, generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle. You make a difference!
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all. Enable us to continue presenting 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: sarah@plugin.org or (204)942-1043.
Related exhibitions:

Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa: Shit-Baby and the Crumpled Giraffe
Przemek Pyszczek: Białystok

Visita guiada en español con Francesca Carella Arfinengo
2018-05-26 15:00 - 16:00 | Manitoba
Visita guiada en español con Francesca Carella Arfinengo
Sábado, 26 de Mayo | 15h

El día sábado19 de Mayo a las 3pm, la artista Francesca Carella Arfinengo brindará un tour guiado de las exposiciones individuales de Przemek Psyzczek, artista de Winnipeg que reside en Polonia, titulada Białystok, y del artista guatemalteco Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa titulada Shit-Baby and the Crumpled Giraffe. Las exhibiciones de Pyszczek y Ramírez-Figueroa se centran en experiencias psicológicas y corporales relacionadas con la infancia haciendo referencia a la forma de objetos cotidianos y del aprendizaje conductual. Estos trabajos representan la primera exhibición individual para Pyszczek en Canadá, y la primera vez que Ramírez-Figueroa presenta su obra en Winnipeg. Białystok y Shit-Baby and the Crumpled Giraffe corren desde el 31 de Marzo hasta el 10 de Junio, 2018. Ingreso libre. Todos son bienvenidos.

Przemek Pyszczek: Białystok
31 Marzo a 10 Junio, 2018
En Białystok, la primera exhibición individual de Przemek Pyszczek, postes galvanizados dan forma a una estructura geométrica. Influenciado por la arquitectura y estructuras civiles de su ciudad de nacimiento Bialystok en Polonia, Pyszczek ha construido una colorida, unificada y desmadejada escultura. Esta obra apresa conformidad tanto como resistencia a las infraestructuras de vivienda pública en la Polonia Comunista, las cuales, siendo grises se transformaron en una explosión de color luego de la caída de la Cortina de Hierro.
Przemek Pyszczek es un artista polaco, criado en Canadá que actualmente reside en Polonia. Su trabajo; esculturas inspiradas en arquitectura, instalaciones y pinturas, trazan la transición en Polonia desde la caída de la cortina de Hierro y sirven también de un trayecto en el cual va re-descubriendo su propio pasado. Pyszczek obtuvo su Bachiller de Diseño Ambiental en la Universidad de Manitoba en 2007. El ha mostrado sus obras en numerosas exhibiciones grupales e individuales, la más reciente en la Galerie Derouillon, París. Su trabajo ha sido incluido en Para Siempre Nunca Viene, Museo Archeologico e d’Arte della Maremma, Grosseto, Italy; 1989 Belenius, Stockholm; Sandomir, Galería Nicodim, Los Angeles; Industrius, Galería Window, Winnipeg; Construyendo Sistemas, Berthold Pott, Cologne; y Corporalitas, Open Forum en Berlin.

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa: Shit-baby and the Crumpled Giraffe
31 Marzo a 10 Junio, 2018
El Bebé de Caca y la Jirafa Estropeada es una excepcional escultura que representa la característica predilección al humor, abyección y performance de Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa transformando movimientos corporales en objetos formales. Para ésta exhibición individual en Plug In ICA, Ramírez-Figueroa sumerge al espectador en un espacio teatral donde lo fantástico se hace frente con la realidad corpórea. Él construye el escenario con una serie de formas esculturales construidas minuciosamente con Styrofoam que revelan un mundo imaginario e infantil.
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa es un artista Guatemalteco. Su trabajo; escultura, performance, vídeo, instalación y grabado, esta fundado en los mecanismos y cualidad del colonialismo a nivel mundial con un enfoque en la historia de Guatemala. Con el apoyo de Corpus (2015-), Ramírez-Figueroa se ha involucrado en una serie de performances que describe como un “atentado en agotar mi interés en la Guerra Civil de Guatemala”. La seriedad de sus temas usualmente es templada con una retozona sensibilidad en el uso de sus materiales, incursiones en la infancia, sueños, fantasías y las complejidades encontradas al representar concretamente ideas o emociones. El obtuvo su Bachiller en Artes Plásticas en la Universidad Emily Carr, Vancouver especializándose en nuevos medios, y un Masters en Artes Visuales del Art Institute en Chicago. Sus obras han causado aclamación internacional, y han sido incluidas notablemente en Viva Arte Viva, la 57a Bienal de Venezia 2017; Incerteza Viva en la 32a Bienal de Sao Paulo 2016; Quemando la Casa, Décima Bienal de Gwangju 2014, y además en el 2016 fue el artista residente en DAAD, Berlín. Mantiene fuertes lazos con Canadá, mostrando su trabajo en la portada de la revista FUSE en 2013. En 2018-2019 Ramírez-Figueroa presentará tres exhibiciones individuales en Canadá, en la galería Grunt, Vancouver, la galería Audain, Vancouver y Plug In ICA, Winnipeg.
Related Exhibitions:
Przemek PyszczekL Białystok
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa: Shit-baby and the Crumpled Giraffe

Plug In ICA Hosts: Canadian Art Spring Issue Launch Party
2018-06-09 17:00 - 19:00 | Manitoba
On Saturday, June 9th Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art will host a launch party for Canadian Art’s Summer Issue. The issue takes on the act of translation as its primary focus and includes a special cover commission by Caroline Monnet. Join us and the Canadian Art team for a drink from 5-7pm in our galleries. Special subscription rates will be available to attendees, as well as individual copies for sale.
This will also be one of the last days to view our spring exhibitions: Shit-Baby and the Crumpled Giraffe by Naufus Ramierz Figueroa and Białystok by Przemek Pyszczek.
We are delighted to host Canadian Art during Gallery Day Winnipeg and look forward to seeing you Saturday. This event is free and open to the public. Everyone Welcome!
For more information about the Gallery Day Winnipeg events see:
https://www.facebook.com/events/169145097089656/
https://canadianart.ca/programs-and-events/2018/05/17/gallery-day-winnipeg/

Exhibition: DIS, Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network
2018-06-26 12:00 - 2018-07-29 18:00 | Manitoba
Exhibition Dates: June 26 – July 29, 2018
Summer Party & Opening Reception: July 7, 2018
Curatorial text:
“Welcome to DIS! Genre nonconforming edutainment.” This salutation spoken by Chus, an animated mouth-eye, who speaks and blinks at the same time, is our intermittent narrator and host through dis.art, a curated video program and DIS’s new video streaming platform. DIS a collective formed in 2010 has been DISmagazine, DISown and DISimages. They curate, make installations and objects, and operate as a hybrid voice that crosses disciplines. In this multi-fold manner of production that frequently shifts identities, DIS questions the very value of segregating modes of making into specific fields of production or defined viewership.
They are connectivity — existing as popular culture, from fashion to advertising through varied platforms from a shop to a life-style magazine, while channelling a criticality that doesn’t necessitate the specified category of ‘art’. In their words, “critique should occur as a compulsory reaction in the body of the public, rather than as a field of specialised labour.”[i] Chus is both a mouth and an eye, seeing as they speak, observing and transmitting synchronously. Education and entertainment align as a means of critique and a methodology. It is a collision of disciplines that in DIS’s hands is both optimistic and dystopic in its visioning of future nations, reprisals of histories and representation of our present.
In Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network, DIS present a program of videos from their website dis.art that range between documentary, instructional video and self-help guide. In an episode of Circle Time, artist, designer and editor of Bidoun Magazine, Babak Radboy teaches children about money, asking a small deadpan audience of under 5 year olds, “so what is money”. He continues, “money is a skeleton.” The children respond with little surprise. “It hides inside of everything that you see and holds it up like a puppet. If you see a chair, it looks like a chair, but it is also forty dollars; this room looks like a room but it is $20,000 a month.” He makes a compelling metaphor that moves into definitions of wages and labour. In another video, an interview captures the novelist and entrepreneur, and self-proclaimed Sea-evangelist, Joe Quirk pushing a new seaworthy technology that allows large structures to float, at a conference in Tahiti. Quirk, details a sci-fi story in the making that posits movable sea-pods, which can disassemble and reassemble into segregated formations of politically aligned seafaring civic societies. And artist Casey Jane Ellison hosts a program, Mothers and Daughters, where she comedically, and at times uncomfortably, interviews her mother about their relationship in an attempt to unravel the oppositional perception of this matriarchal relationship as a fabricated legacy.
This video program is set with an installation that at first glance resembles tradeshow booths or world-fair pavilions. The walls painted a deep maroon with a selection of backlit photographs of people, objects and text. Four free standing, gridded and synched monitor’s play the video program of short vignettes in front of a couch made from hay bales. DIS could be selling international audiences on the merits of its nation’s policy and lifestyle, or as a corporation, selling its product with its contrived identity. Nations and corporations promote themselves in similar ways through production — gross national and domestic product growth are market gains, and the people they serve are citizens and customers.
In this iteration of Thumbs That Type and Swipe[ii] at Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, seven images (from an enlarged and isolated mosquito to a close up of a ‘thumbs up’) are placed in light boxes commonly fabricated for advertising — selling you a pesticide or a national symbol? But of course you are in a gallery within an exhibition and this assemblage of seemingly incongruous images is selected by DIS who use the propaganda of nations and promotional material of markets to chop off heads. A figure stands in a fashionable down vest, hands in pocket, headless in a park amongst the trees, or on the video monitors, media theorist McKenzie Wark lectures about the possibility of a post pornographic state of being and techno gender, with his head in his hands or resting on the floor as his body paces near him. “After the beheading what is left on our shoulders?
DIS’s stylized beheadings seems more about shaking one’s head, remembering the weight of it, and shifting one’s perception than a violent removal. But their agenda also reads as direr, pointed and critical of economic interconnections between commerce and state; the alignment of popular culture with consumers; and controlled flows of information through technology. Their questioning is systemic, asking how do we learn and who controls it? Both questions linked to streams of directed data. Who sees what and why?
List of Works
DIS
Onboarding: Thumbs that Type and Swipe, 2018
7 Lightboxes, 38” x 29”
Additional Text Drew Zeiba; Design Chris James
DIS.ART
Video program, total run time: 55 minutes. A compilation of video shorts featuring in order of appearance: DIS; Will Benedict and Steffen Jørgensen; Ryan Trecartin; Darren Bader; Malte Zander; Amalia Ulman; Ilana Harris-Babou; Maroon World; Ryan Trecartin; Casey Jane Ellison; Christopher Kulendran Thomas in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann; Kim Laughton; Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman and Daniel Keller; Anastasia Davydova Lewis in collaboration with Eno Swinnen (A program guide is available at Plug In)
[i] Mahammad Salemy, “Dis in Conversation,” 2016. https://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/dis/
[ii] DIS’s exhibition at Plug In ICA is an edited version of its first presentation in Madrid at La Casa Encendida from February 2 to May 13, 2018.

Hannah Black Artist Talk
2018-06-27 18:00 - 19:00 | Manitoba
Hannah Black will present an artist talk over video as part of the Speaker series for Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network (Session I of Plug In ICA’s 2018 Summer Institute).*
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. Recently, she has published two books; Life (2017), in collaboration with Juliana Huxtable, and Dark Pool Party (2016). Her work has been screened and shown in exhibitions across Europe and the United States with recent exhibitions at 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.

For a full list of the DIS: Session I, Visiting and Video Speakers: https://plugin.org/exhibitions/summer-institute-dis-edutainment-network/

* For Session I of our 2018 Summer Institute Program we are extremely pleased to have DIS collective member, Marco Roso as our lead faculty (June 25-July 7, 2018). Framed by our summer exhibition of the same name, DIS’s seminar Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network circles around a series of exhibitions organized by DIS and framed by dis.art, a new streaming edutainment platform. Through direct engagement with the artists of dis.art, the session will contemplate a series of linked concerns, including: the nature of belonging in a rootless-seeming, networked world; the changing relationship to the ways one owns, lends or gives time through occupations, bodies, or other forms of value-creation. Some of the topics DIS will cover: Money: what is it?; information consumption; the future of citizenship; reparations; love and humor.

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our artists, generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle. You make a difference! We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. Plug ICA gratefully acknowledges the RBC Foundation and the Johnston Group for their support of our 2018/2019 Summer Institute Program as well as the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain as cultural partners in the presentation of Session I of our Summer Institute.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all. Enable us to continue presenting 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: sarah@plugin.org or (204)942-1043.

Related exhibit:

DIS, Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network

Artist talk with Simon Denny
2018-06-29 11:00 | Manitoba
Simon Denny will be giving an artist talk via video stream as part of our Speaker Series for Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network (Session I of Plug In ICA’s 2018 Summer Institute).* Everyone welcome!
For a full list of the DIS: Session I, Visiting and Video Speakers: https://plugin.org/exhibitions/summer-institute-dis-edutainment-network/
* For Session I of our 2018 Summer Institute Program we are extremely pleased to have DIS collective member, Marco Roso as our lead faculty (June 25-July 7, 2018). Framed by our summer exhibition of the same name, DIS’s seminar Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network circles around a series of exhibitions organized by DIS and framed by dis.art, a new streaming edutainment platform. Through direct engagement with the artists of dis.art, the session will contemplate a series of linked concerns, including: the nature of belonging in a rootless-seeming, networked world; the changing relationship to the ways one owns, lends or gives time through occupations, bodies, or other forms of value-creation. Some of the topics DIS will cover: Money: what is it?; information consumption; the future of citizenship; reparations; love and humor.

Talk by Architect Nerea Calvillo
2018-06-29 18:00 - 19:00 | Manitoba
Architect Nerea Calvillo will be giving an artist talk at Plug In ICA as part of our Visiting Speaker Series for Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network (Session I of Plug In ICA’s 2018 Summer Institute).* Everyone welcome!
Calvillo joins us from New York for this special presentation. For a full list of the DIS: Session I, Visiting and Video Speakers: https://plugin.org/exhibitions/summer-institute-dis-edutainment-network/
* For Session I of our 2018 Summer Institute Program we are extremely pleased to have DIS collective member, Marco Roso as our lead faculty (June 25-July 7, 2018). Framed by our summer exhibition of the same name, DIS’s seminar Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network circles around a series of exhibitions organized by DIS and framed by dis.art, a new streaming edutainment platform. Through direct engagement with the artists of dis.art, the session will contemplate a series of linked concerns, including: the nature of belonging in a rootless-seeming, networked world; the changing relationship to the ways one owns, lends or gives time through occupations, bodies, or other forms of value-creation. Some of the topics DIS will cover: Money: what is it?; information consumption; the future of citizenship; reparations; love and humor.

Talk with Artist, Writer, and Curator Aria Dean
2018-07-02 18:00 - 19:00 | Manitoba
Writer, artist and current Assistant Curator of Rhizome’s net art program, Aria Dean will be giving an artist talk at Plug In ICA as part of our Video Speaker Series for Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network (Session I of Plug In ICA’s 2018 Summer Institute).* Everyone welcome!
For a full list of the DIS: Session I, Visiting and Video Speakers: https://plugin.org/exhibitions/summer-institute-dis-edutainment-network/
* For Session I of our 2018 Summer Institute Program we are extremely pleased to have DIS collective member, Marco Roso as our lead faculty (June 25-July 7, 2018). Framed by our summer exhibition of the same name, DIS’s seminar Thumbs That Type and Swipe: The DIS Edutainment Network circles around a series of exhibitions organized by DIS and framed by dis.art, a new streaming edutainment platform. Through direct engagement with the artists of dis.art, the session will contemplate a series of linked concerns, including: the nature of belonging in a rootless-seeming, networked world; the changing relationship to the ways one owns, lends or gives time through occupations, bodies, or other forms of value-creation. Some of the topics DIS will cover: Money: what is it?; information consumption; the future of citizenship; reparations; love and humor.

Summer Institute Session II: Site/ation with BUSH gallery
2018-08-07 - 2018-08-24 | Manitoba
Plug In ICA Summer Institute Session II:
August 7-24, 2018
BUSH gallery: “Site/ation”
For Session II of our Summer Institute, post-graduate research program, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is excited to partner with BUSH gallery. Over three weeks, from August 7-24, Tania Willard, Peter Morin and Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill will lead Site/ation, pushing a radical approach to curating and art making, born from active engagements and lived experiences on the land, land marking, contemporary art, the reserve, and the gallery. Using Indigenous methodologies to build a transformational space, that is open to everyone, BUSH seeks to de-centre the gallery, and the city as epicentres of contemporary art.
BUSH gallery Project Statement:
BUSH gallery acknowledges the Indigenous Nations that have ancestral ties to the Treaty 1 Territory and the Métis Nation homeland. As uninvited guests,* we strive to connect what we are doing as Indigenous artists with valuing and circulating within local Indigenous economies and communities, while also creating space for conceptual, experimental and performative land-based Indigenous led contemporary art. By practicing reciprocity and value-based systems of Indigenous knowledges, centred by our specific cultural backgrounds, we make galleries of thought, colour, land, sky, text and interrelationality.
The 2018 summer intensive with Plug In ICA enacts ideas of site/ation. How are we influenced, challenged, changed and politically tied to the lands in our communities and in our orbits. Participants will camp on the land together, read relevant texts, go for walks on the land, dream new relationships, and will research and learn by making and doing.
Using art as strategy to guide resources and value Indigenous led spaces that acknowledge the land as the first gallery, as our gallery as BUSH gallery we will come together to laugh, to make, to eat and to conjure ideas and dreams that will feed the ancestors.
BUSH gallery functions as a space that allows for dialogue, experimental practice and community engaged work that contributes to an understanding of how gallery systems and art might be transfigured, translated and transformed by Indigenous customs, aesthetics, performance and land use systems. BUSH gallery is a trans-conceptual galleryspace. Trans-conceptual repositions ideas born within Indigenous and western epistemological conditions. The trans-conceptual space requires your body to be in a constant state of flux. Never settling like the flow of water in a river. One of the goals of BUSH gallery is to articulate Indigenous creative land practices, which are born out of a lived connection to the land.

* When we use ‘uninvited guest’ it means we acknowledge that due to dispossession of Indigenous lands and territories across Canada we operate outside of protocols that would make the local territory we are visiting within the authority of the traditional Indigenous land rights holder.

Participants for Summer Institute II include:
Lacie Burning, Kevin Lee Burton, Jane Harms, Liz Ikiriko, Audie Murray, Joseph Naytowhow, Dana Qaddah, Christian Vistan, Daina Warren, Bo Yeung. Bio’s available here.

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our artists, generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle. You make a difference!
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. Plug ICA gratefully acknowledges the RBC Foundation and the Johnston Group for their support of our 2018/2019 Summer Institute Program.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all. Enable us to continue presenting 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: sarah@plugin.org or (204)942-1043.

Summer Institute Session II: Public Talk, Site/ation with BUSH gallery
2018-08-14 18:00 - 19:00 | Manitoba
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is pleased to host a talk by BUSH gallery (Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Peter Morin and Tania Willard) as part of the public programming for Site/ation, session two of our 2018 Summer Institute program, facilitated by the experimental curatorial and artist collective, BUSH gallery. Everyone welcome!
BUSH gallery statement:
BUSH gallery acknowledges the Indigenous Nations that have ancestral ties to the Treaty 1 Territory and the Métis Nation homeland. As uninvited guests,* we strive to connect what we are doing as Indigenous artists with valuing and circulating within local Indigenous economies and communities, while also creating space for conceptual, experimental and performative land-based Indigenous led contemporary art. By practicing reciprocity and value-based systems of Indigenous knowledges, centred by our specific cultural backgrounds, we make galleries of thought, colour, land, sky, text and interrelationality.
The 2018 summer intensive with Plug In ICA enacts ideas of site/ation. How are we influenced, challenged, changed and politically tied to the lands in our communities and in our orbits?
Using art as strategy to guide resources and value Indigenous led spaces that acknowledge the land as the first gallery, as our gallery as BUSH gallery we come together to laugh, to make, to eat and to conjure ideas and dreams that will feed the ancestors.
BUSH gallery functions as a space that allows for dialogue, experimental practice and community engaged work that contributes to an understanding of how gallery systems and art might be transfigured, translated and transformed by Indigenous customs, aesthetics, performance and land use systems. BUSH gallery is a trans-conceptual galleryspace. Trans-conceptual repositions ideas born within Indigenous and western epistemological conditions. The trans-conceptual space requires your body to be in a constant state of flux. Never settling like the flow of water in a river. One of the goals of BUSH gallery is to articulate Indigenous creative land practices, which are born out of a lived connection to the land.

* When we use ‘uninvited guest’ it means we acknowledge that due to dispossession of Indigenous lands and territories across Canada we operate outside of protocols that would make the local territory we are visiting within the authority of the traditional Indigenous land rights holder.

Summer Institute Session II: Indigenous Art History at the BUSH by Cathy Mattes | Wednesday, August 15, 10:30am
2018-08-15 10:30 - 11:30 | Manitoba
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is pleased to present “Indigenous Art History at the BUSH,” a talk by Cathy Mattes as part of Site/ation by BUSH gallery (Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Peter Morin and Tania Willard). As an internationally distinguished curator Mattes is known for strategies that emphasize audience participation, direct engagement, and Michif cultural protocols and practices. As an educator at Brandon University, Mattes makes connections between politics and art with the understanding that artists can enact social change. Drawing attention to marginalized art histories, Mattes contributes essential labor towards shifting dominant narratives in the presentation of contemporary art and curatorial practice.
For this presentation, Mattes will speak about her curatorial work, including the Rielisms exhibition, and Inheritance, a recent exhibition of work by Amy Malbeuf that included collaborative elements such as ‘kitchen table talk’ and jigging after artist talks.
Mattes’s talk is part of Plug In ICA’s second session of our 2018 Summer Institute, Site/ation facilitated by BUSH gallery. BUSH uses a radical approach to curating and art-making, born from active engagements and lived experiences on the land, land marking, contemporary art, the reserve, and the gallery. Using Indigenous methodologies to build a transformational space, that is open to everyone, BUSH seeks to de-centre the gallery, and the city as epicentres of contemporary art.
Cathy Mattes is a proud Michif writer and curator based in rural Southwestern Manitoba. Her practice focuses on the intersection of Indigenous issues and art, with an emphasis on community, which she sees as a complicated concept, to be explored, questioned and located. Interested in creating better conditions for Indigenous cultural workers, Mattes has served on the board for the Urban Shaman Gallery, and collaborated with Indigenous cultural workers in Australia and Venice. Her curatorial projects include Frontrunners, Urban Shaman Gallery and Plug In ICA; Blanche: KC Adams & Jonathan Jones, Chalkhorse Gallery, Sydney Australia; Rockstars & Wannabes, Urban Shaman Gallery, and Transcendence – KC Adams, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba. She has lectured nationally and internationally, and in 2010 she was selected as a delegate on the Canada Council for the Arts’ Aboriginal Curators Delegation to New Zealand and Australia. In addition to her freelance work, Mattes was the curator at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba between 2003 and 2005, and has been a consultant for various government agencies and arts organizations. She is an Assistant Professor teaching art history at Brandon University in the Visual and Aboriginal Arts Department, and is pursuing her PhD at the University of Manitoba in Native Studies.

BUSH gallery Open Studios and Summer Party
2018-08-24 19:00 - 23:00 | Manitoba
Celebrate with Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art and BUSH gallery as we close Site/ation the second session of our 2018 Summer Institute. Join us this Friday, August 24th at Plug In ICA from 7-11pm as we celebrate the final weeks of summer with BUSH gallery open studios including performances, installations and a screening. BUSH gallery (Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Peter Morin and Tania Willard) and Summer Institute participants Lacie Burning, Jane Harms, Liz Ikiriko, Audie Murray, Joseph Naytowhow, Dana Qaddah, Emiliano Sepulveda, Christian Vistan, Diana Warren and Bo Yeung host a night of art, music, food and fun. On the rooftop patio enjoy dancing, eating or socializing to BUSH gallery’s special summer play list. Cash bar will be open! Everyone welcome!
Enacting a principal of Site/ation, BUSH gallery Summer Institute grounded its programming in developing knowledge of and with the land. Working from a position of respect for their status as uninvited guests, Site/ation emphasized respect for local knowledge by initiating a talk with Niigaan Sinclair on Treaty 1, a plant walk with Elder Carl Smith, and participating in the Broken Head Pow Wow. Art Elder Joseph Naytowhow guided the group in song, picking choke cherries, learning to sing ‘all shook up’ in Cree and so much more. They made NDN peanut butter, went swimming in Lake Winnipeg, and projected videos on the trees and makeshift screens. BUSH gallery collective gave a performative lecture, including interventions by Tania Willard’s children; we all learned Metis jigging with curator Cathy Mattes; and played basketball at the Jackson Beardy Memorial Mural. Over the course of three weeks, BUSH gallery participants camped, laughed, made, ate, and conjured ideas and dreams that fed the ancestors. Please join us in celebrating the culmination of this transformative Summer Institute session.

For More information on BUSH gallery and the Summer Institute, Session II, see: https://plugin.org/exhibitions/bush-gallery/

Plug ICA gratefully acknowledges the RBC Foundation and the Johnston Group for their support of our 2018/2019 Summer Institute Program. We extend our gratitude to our artists, generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle. You make a difference! We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all. Enable us to continue presenting 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

Closed for Installation
2018-08-25 - 2018-09-06, 2018-09-10 - 2018-09-28 | Manitoba
Plug In ICA Gallery and Bookstore are closed between exhibitions for installation. To browse use our library or browse our bookstore please ring the doorbell during office hours (Monday – Friday 10am-5pm), or email info@plugin.org to make an appointment.

Plug In ICA's Prairie Art Book Fair
2018-09-07 16:00 - 2018-09-09 17:00 | Manitoba
Prairie Art Book Fair
Friday, September 7: 4-8pm
Saturday, September 8: 11am-7pm
Sunday, September 9: 11am-5pm
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art
Unit 1- 460 Portage Ave, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 0E8

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is extremely excited to present our inaugural Prairie Art Book Fair September 7-9, 2018. As a means to acknowledge the critical relationship between contemporary art and publishing with a regional focus on the Prairies, the weekend will showcase over twenty-nine exhibitors and present numerous events with highlights including collaborative hole punch drawing with Winnipeg born artist Micah Lexier; a talk connecting DIY tattooing and artist multiples by Maxine Proctor (Director and Co-founder of the Toronto Art Book Fair and Managing Editor of BlackFlash Magazine), and a workshop with key presenter Jeff Khonsary (Co-Founding and Artistic Director of Fillip and Director of New Documents) on alternative book fair models, looking at the economics and social space of the book fair model itself.
Explore diverse and accomplished publications from over twenty-five publishers, artists, and galleries ranging from zines, catalogues, artist editions, fiction, poetry, criticism, and periodicals.
A complete list of exhibitors and events are listed below.
Exhibitors include:
aceartinc. | Winnipeg
ARP Books | Winnipeg
Articulate Ink Press | Regina
Association of Manitoba Book Publishers | Winnipeg
At Bay Press | Winnipeg
Bison Books | Winnipeg
BlackFlash Magazine | Saskatoon
Blinkers | Winnipeg
Border Crossings | Winnipeg
Carnation | Winnipeg
Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber | Winnipeg
Esker Foundation | Calgary
Cliff Eyland | Winnipeg
Galleries West | Calgary
Gallery 1C03, University of Winnipeg | Winnipeg
Jeff Khonsary (Fillip and New Documents) | Vancouver/Los Angeles
MacKenzie Art Gallery | Regina
Martha Street Studio | Winnipeg
Parameter Press | Winnipeg
Public Parking | Winnipeg/Regina/Calgary/Steinbach
Red Rising Magazine | Winnipeg
Remai Modern | Saskatoon
The Third Rail | Minneapolis
University of Calgary Press | Calgary
Urban Shaman Gallery | Winnipeg
Video Pool Media Arts Centre | Winnipeg
Walter Phillips Gallery | Banff
Warehouse Journal | Winnipeg
Whiny Femmes | Winnipeg

Events:

FRIDAY:
4:00pm-8:00pm | Opening
6:00pm-8:00pm | Plug In ICA Book Launches: STAGES: Drawing the Curtain supplementary publications (with Fillip Publishing) & Exhibition Notes: Entering the Landscape

SATURDAY:
11:30pm-12:30pm | Launch and Reading: Whiny Femmes Volume 2
1:30pm-2:30pm | Talk: Jeff Khonsary “How to Buy and Sell Books at Art Book Fairs” (working title)
3pm-4pm | Talk: Maxine Proctor, “Body Talk: Reclaiming Community, Identity, and Language with Tattoos, Flash, and Artists’ Multiples”
4:30pm-5:30pm | Hannah Godfrey Reading: “Not For The World Would I Compare It To Anything” presented by Parameter Press
6pm-7pm | aceartinc. Event (details tbd)

SATURDAY & SUNDAY:
12:30pm-1:30pm | Micah Lexier: Collaborative hole punch drawing

We offer our sincere thanks to Paula Mitchell and Arnold Leventhal for their generous support of our book fair. Thank You!
Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to our artists, generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle. You make a difference!
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all. Enable us to continue presenting 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 more information or for media inquiries please contact: Erin Josephson-Laidlaw at erin@plugin.org; (204)942-1043.

Plug In ICA Annual General Meeting 2018
2018-09-17 18:00 - 20:00 | Manitoba
Plug In ICA Annual General Meeting 2018
Monday, September 17, 2018 | 6pm
Rae and Jerry’s Steakhouse
1405 Portage Ave, Winnipeg, MB

Plug In ICA will hold its Annual General Meeting on Monday, September 17, 6pm at Rae and Jerry’s Steakhouse located at 1405 Portage Avenue. Everyone is welcome; but in order to vote you must be a member in good standing. Membership must be paid for a day before the meeting commences. (Membership maybe purchased online: https://plugin.myshopify.com/collections/memberships
Plug In ICA will present our annual report and KPMG will present our audited financial statements for the year ending March 31, 2018. New members of the Board of Directors will be elected.
For further inquiries please contact: Angela Forget at angela@plugin.org or by phone at 204-942-1043.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our esteemed Board of Directors for their dedication, thoughtfulness and hard work. Plug In is dependent on their volunteer contributions. Through committee work they share professional knowledge and experiences, guiding the organization in reflection of its history into the future.
Board of Directors: Sotirios Kotoulas (President), Samuel McLaughlin (Secretary) Jordan Sodomsky, (Treasurer), Uzoma Asagwara, Irene Bindi, Dr. Julie Nagam, Brad German, Zia Hameed, Dr. Hee-Jung Serenity Joo, Dr. Serena Keshsavjee, Silvester Komlodi, Karine Pelletier.
Board Emeritus: Daniel Friedman, Noam Gonick, Marlene Stern, Meeka Walsh.

Plug In ICA extends our gratitude to the artists we work with, our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers. With special thanks to our Director’s Circle. You make a difference!
Galvanizers: The Asper Foundation, Susan Glass & Arni Thorsteinson, Dave Johnston, Chrysoula & Konstantinos Kotoulas, Michael Nesbitt
Instigators: CGM Engineering Ltd., Daniel Friedman & Rob Dalgliesh, Samuel and Aveeve McLaughlin
Motivators: Danny Bubis & Jennifer Blumenthal, Kat Kupca, John MacAuley, Paula Mitchell & Arnold Leventhal, James A. Richardson, sotirioscorp, Gary Ursell

Beyond individual support, we have benefited from numerous corporate and foundational support for our various programs. A list of our 2017/2018 sponsors are as follows:
Youth Tours: Payworks, Wawanesa
Summer Institute Session I: Cliff Eyland
STAGES 2017: Susan Glass & Arni Thorsteinson; Daniel Friedman &Rob Dalgliesh; Winnipeg Foundation; Alpha Masonry
Gala 2017: Montrose Ltd.; CGM Engineering & Tony Mitousis; KPMG, PRA

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We could not operate without your continued financial investment and lobbying efforts.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all. Enable us to continue presenting excellent programs! Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/supporter by contacting Angela Forget: angela@plugin.org

Respondent Series | Artist Talk with Shannon Bool | September 25, 7pm
2018-09-25 19:00 - 20:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Respondent Series | Artist Talk with Shannon Bool

Berlin-based artist, Shannon Bool, will be presenting a talk on Tuesday, September 25th, 2018 at 7pm. The talk is in conjunction with the exhibition, Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs, which opens Saturday, September 29th, 2018. The Canadian born artist’s stream of work has always permutated in diverging forms to include murals, sculpture, tapestries, and photograms. She continues to concentrate her works in visual codes that are entrenched in popular culture, art history, pre-historic and ancient civilizations. Bool’s talk will cover her expansive practice, as well as her commissioned contribution for the upcoming fall exhibition: All Saints Bench. This new work is an extension from a previous line of work that is also involved with surface, ornamentation and their historical, emotional and poetic resonance.
This is the first presentation of Bool’s work in Winnipeg. We are privileged to host her work along with an esteemed list of artists gathered for Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs.
We would also like to recognize Daniel Faria for his support of All Saints Bench and Fabris and Watts for their support in producing this new work by Bool.

Associated Programming:
Friday, September 28, 7pm | Sameer Farooq, Jeanne Randolph and Jared Stanley in conversation
Saturday, September 29 | Nuit Blanche, Exhibition open 7pm to 1am

7-11pm | Opening Reception
6pm | Panel Discussion with Raven Chacon, Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite (in partnership with Video Pool Media Centre)
8pm | Performances by Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite

Thursday, November 1, 7pm | Artist Talk Ken Lum Hosted by the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Eckhardt Hall, 300 Memorial Boulevard, Winnipeg, and presented by the School of Art, University of Manitoba & Plug In Institute of Contemporary

Related exhibit:

Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs

Respondent Series | Panel Discussion with Sameer Farooq, Jeanne Randolph and Jared Stanley | September 28th, 7pm
2018-09-28 19:00 - 20:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Respondent Series | Panel Discussion with Sameer Farooq, Jeanne Randolph and Jared Stanley

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art | 1, 460 Portage Ave | Winnipeg MB | Canada
As part of Plug In ICA’s Respondent Series for the exhibition, Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs, we present a conversation between, prominent cultural theorist and writer, Jeanne Randolph, and Toronto-based artist and designer, Sameer Farooq, along with Farooq’s collaborator, poet and artist, Jared Stanley, moderated by our Director Jenifer Papararo.
For the exhibition Jeanne Randolph, and Sameer Farooq and Jared Stanley activate collections through ficto-criticism (Randolph) and speculative museums (Farooq and Stanley). Centered on these methodologies, their public discussion will focus on the convergence and practice of their distinct approaches to forms of writing and display in relation to consumerism and historical narratives.

Associated Programming:

Tuesday, September 25 | Artist Talk by Shannon Bool, 7pm
Saturday, September 29 | Nuit Blanche, Exhibition open 7pm to 1am

7-11pm | Opening Reception
6pm | Panel Discussion with Raven Chacon, Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite (in partnership with Video Pool Media Centre)
8pm | Performances by Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite

Thursday, November 1, 7pm | Artist Talk Ken Lum Hosted by the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Eckhardt Hall, 300 Memorial Boulevard, Winnipeg, and presented by the School of Art, University of Manitoba & Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art

Related exhibit:
Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs

Panel Discussion | Raven Chacon, Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite | September 29, 6pm
2018-09-29 18:00 - 19:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Panel Discussion and Performance | Raven Chacon, Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art | 1, 460 Portage Ave | Winnipeg MB | Canada

As part of Plug In ICA’s Respondent Series for the exhibition, Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs, we present a conversation between, artist and composer Raven Chacon, and experimental musician’s Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite.
Raven Chacon’s participation in Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs begins with a new book project and sound piece that will comprise twelve musical scores dedicated to twelve contemporary Indigenous women “working in the field of contemporary music performance or composition,“ alongside essays and performance notes.
This work in progress is in dedication to the life of Zitkála-Šá, an early 20th century Yankton Dakota woman who was a prolific writer, musician, and activist. Zitkála-Šá’s life is interpreted through music, and, in dialogue with collaborators Suzanne Kite and Laura Ortman, in an abstract form that subordinates language and clarity, never prescribing itself as one view that is presented as an authentic biography.
The public discuss will focus of Chacon’s research and the collaborative participation of Suzanne Kite and Laura Ortman. Kite and Ortman will perform on Plug In ICA’s rooftop shortly following the conversation and as part of Days of Reading’s opening reception.

Related exhibit:
Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs

Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs | Opening Reception | September 29, 7pm
2018-09-29 19:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs

September 30, 2018 to December 30, 2018
Shannon Bool • Natalie Czech • Fabiola Carranza • Raven Chacon (with Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite) • Leah Decter • Sameer Farooq & Jared Stanley • Theaster Gates • Hassan Khan • Ken Lum • Sylvia Matas • Jeanne Randolph.
Curated by Sarah Nesbitt and Jenifer Papararo

Artist Talk with Shannon Bool
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Sameer Farooq, Jeanne Randolph & Jared Stanley in conversation
Friday, September 28, 2018
Nuit Blanche Opening
Saturday, September 29, 2018 | 7pm – 1am
Panel Discussion with Raven Chacon, Laura Ortman & Suzanne Kite
Saturday, September 29 , 2018 | 6pm
Performances by Laura Ortman & Suzanne Kite
Saturday, September 29, 2018 | 8pm
Artist Talk by Ken Lum
Thursday, November 1, 7pm |

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is eager to announce the opening of our fall exhibition, Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs.Structured around general notions of indexing, collecting, cloaking and the reveal with a focus on material and an overlay of poetry – the exhibition is grounded in the use of text, often found, poetry, and the everyday, with historical and political narratives interwoven as material, including the popular Black cultural magazine Jet in Theaster Gates’s work Do I Know You, 2017; the Haitian Declaration of Independence in Liberté ou la morte by Fabiola Carranza; strip mall signage in Ken Lum’s 117 Dwight Eisenhower Blvd; and in recently uncovered medieval graffiti in All Saints Bench, 2018 by Shannon Bool.
Natalie Czech, Hassan Khan, and Sylvia Matas present language using banal everyday signifiers: magazine print ads, LED signage, or newspaper clippings, which they parse into poetic and political gestures. Jeanne Randolph, and Sameer Farooq and Jared Stanley activate collections through ficto-criticism (Randolph) and speculative museums (Farooq and Stanley), and Leah Decter, like Carranza, excavates language from the archive of her maternal grandfather’s ship’s manifest coming in to Canada in her woven work, (through)line(age) 1779-1925-2013, 2013. As part of the exhibition Raven Chacon begins a new book project in dedication to the life of Zitkála-Šá, an early 20th century Yankton Dakota woman that will be comprised of twelve musical scores dedicated to twelve contemporary Indigenous women “working in the field of contemporary music performance or composition.”
The exhibition is to be read as one moves through it. Through a paring of objects and texts, how histories are captured and presented surface in prosaic terms, but carry the weight of history’s missteps and misrepresentations.
– Curated by Sarah Nesbitt and Jenifer Papararo

We would like to acknowledge Video Pool Media Arts Centre as co-producers of For Zitkála-Šá by Raven Chacon, which is a work in progress.

Performance | Raven Chacon, Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite | September 29, 8pm
2018-09-29 20:00 - 21:00 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Performance | Raven Chacon, Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art | 1, 460 Portage Ave | Winnipeg MB | Canada

As part of Plug In ICA’s Respondent Series for the exhibition, Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs, we present a conversation between, artist and composer Raven Chacon, and experimental musician’s Laura Ortman and Suzanne Kite.
Raven Chacon’s participation in Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs begins with a new book project and sound piece that will comprise twelve musical scores dedicated to twelve contemporary Indigenous women “working in the field of contemporary music performance or composition,“ alongside essays and performance notes.
This work in progress is in dedication to the life of Zitkála-Šá, an early 20th century Yankton Dakota woman who was a prolific writer, musician, and activist. Zitkála-Šá’s life is interpreted through music, and, in dialogue with collaborators Suzanne Kite and Laura Ortman, in an abstract form that subordinates language and clarity, never prescribing itself as one view that is presented as an authentic biography.
The public discuss will focus of Chacon’s research and the collaborative participation of Suzanne Kite and Laura Ortman. Chacon, Kite and Ortman will perform in Plug In ICA’s foyer shortly following the conversation and as part of Days of Reading’s opening reception.

Related exhibit:
Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs

Fall Exhibition | Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs |
2018-09-30 - 2018-12-30 | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 460 Portage, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is eager to announce the opening of our fall exhibition, Days of Reading: beyond this state of affairs.Structured around general notions of indexing, collecting, cloaking and the reveal with a focus on material and an overlay of poetry – the exhibition is grounded in the use of text, often found, poetry, and the everyday, with historical and political narratives interwoven as material, including the popular Black cultural magazine Jet in Theaster Gates’s work Do I Know You, 2017; the Haitian Declaration of Independence in Liberté ou la morte by Fabiola Carranza; strip mall signage in Ken Lum’s 117 Dwight Eisenhower Blvd; and in recently uncovered medieval graffiti in All Saints Bench, 2018 by Shannon Bool.
Natalie Czech, Hassan Khan, and Sylvia Matas present language using banal everyday signifiers: magazine print ads, LED signage, or newspaper clippings, which they parse into poetic and political gestures. Jeanne Randolph, and Sameer Farooq and Jared Stanley activate collections through ficto-criticism (Randolph) and speculative museums (Farooq and Stanley), and Leah Decter, like Carranza, excavates language from the archive of her maternal grandfather’s ship’s manifest coming in to Canada in her woven work, (through)line(age) 1779-1925-2013, 2013. As part of the exhibition Raven Chacon begins a new book project in dedication to the life of Zitkála-Šá, an early 20th century Yankton Dakota woman that will be comprised of twelve musical scores dedicated to twelve contemporary Indigenous women “working in the field of contemporary music performance or composition.”
The exhibition is to be read as one moves through it. Through a paring of objects and texts, how histories are captured and presented surface in prosaic terms, but carry the weight of history’s missteps and misrepresentations.
– Curated by Sarah Nesbitt and Jenifer Papararo
