Schedule
Friday, September 11
5 – 8pm: Open Hours
6 – 7pm: Plug In Editions Launch with Dr. Carlos Gámez
Plug In ICA is pleased to present a new Plug In Edition: Notas personales. Reescribir la narrativa | Personal Notes. Rewriting the narrative. This book of essays proposes a “time capsule” where academic theory and personal narrative converge in an inverted (two-by-two) artistic object. The work explores the “theatricality of life” and the individual’s capacity to choose and design their own narrative in the face of the impositions of historical memory. Through a dialogue between Spanish and English, the book functions as a physical metaphor for the migrant condition and the instability of identity. Using the neobaroque style of Severo Sarduy and the engineering of the self of Sergio Blanco, the text moves away from linear testimony to inhabit the simulacrum, proposing that truth is constructed through the conscious editing of the personal archive and the recognition of the body as the primary territory of writing.
7:30 – 8:30pm: All the People in my Head, a book reading with George Toles
At Bay Press is thrilled to feature a reading and Q & A with the inimitable George Toles. Toles will read a number of his mini-narratives from his new book All the People in My Head.
6 – 9pm: Kick-off Reception
To celebrate the launch of the 2026 Prairie Art Book Fair, we will be hosting a kick-off reception with complementary refreshments and a cash bar. We hope to see you at our galleries!
Saturday, September 12
11am – 6pm: Open Hours
11:30 am – 12:30 pm: Reflecting Oil Publication Presentation with Ernst Logar
Reflections on crude oil in petroleum sciences and the humanities usually take place without direct physical experience of the substance. The interdisciplinary Reflecting Oil project is a collection of art-based research that includes practical action and holistic observation of the raw material in the context of petroculture. This research approach focuses on sensory perceptions and aesthetic and symbolic interpretations and provides insights at the levels of multisensory and practical knowledge.
The talk presents the Reflecting Oil book, which summarizes the research project’s outcomes in all its facets.
www.reflectingoil.info
1:30 – 3:30pm: Offcuts: gathering as practice + material as language with Dirty Dishes Collective
Offcuts is a multi-faceted artists’ book workshop that explores kinship with gathered materials, and how patchworked systems can be used as their own form of language. Plastic penny sleeves filled with fabric scraps, bread clips, handwritten secrets, and other “offcut” ephemera form the pages of the book. This workshop provides an opportunity to explore the lifeworlds of objects, personal archives, and the narratives that can be built from one’s own un/intentional collections.
Space is limited, interested participants can email dirtydishescollective@gmail.com with the Subject Line: “offcuts” to confirm their spot.
Co-hosted with Dirty Dishes Collective
4 – 6pm: Feminist Collage Workshop: Watercolour & Paper on Wood with Lita Fontaine
In this workshop, participants will be guided through mixed-media collage-making. We will begin with a drawing and painting exercise, then move into the hands-on collage technique. Participants will work with found imagery intuitively cut from magazines and generate their own design using traditional the cut-paste method combined with painting. Each person will create one collage on wood to take home.
Optional: you are welcome to bring photocopies of family photographs or other archival materials to incorporate in your art. We advise against any glossy paper.
Space is limited, interested participants can email christina@herizons.ca with the Subject Line: “collage workshop” to confirm their spot.
Co-hosted with Herizons Magazine
Sunday, September 13
11am – 5pm: Open Hours
12 – 1pm: University of Regina Press Talk & Q&A with David Garneau and Dr. Laura Forsythe
Hosted by the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art in collaboration with University of Regina Press, David and Laura will be discussing David’s recent book Dark Chapters: Reading the Still Lives of David Garneau along with ideas on Métis visual identity and Métis specific forms of Indigeneity.
Copies of Dark Chapters will be available for sale and signing by the author.
3 – 4pm: Bound Narratives: The Designer-Publisher + Alternative Dissemination with Reza Rezaï (PARDIS) and Sabba Rezaï
This roundtable discussion examines the evolution of the photobook as an alternative, democratized space for artistic dissemination. By moving outside the gallery wall, the printed page becomes a primary site of exhibition. To anchor this discussion, the panel will bridge international independent publishing models with local, contemporary practices. The conversation will dissect the philosophies of pioneering, one-person operations specifically focusing on Kodoji Press + Fw:Books before transitioning into an object-study of the panelists’ own published works.
