POSTED ON NOV 29 2018

We are pleased to announce the newest board members to join Plug In ICA: Alexander Mickelthwate and Kristin Nelson. The Board provides leadership to fulfill Plug In ICA’s mandate to support all aspects of art-making by presenting, producing and circulating contemporary art through research, exhibitions, publications, education, outreach and advocacy. We’re looking forward to working with these two very dynamic professionals!

Please help us welcome Alexander & Kristin!

Alexander Mickelthwate (Director) was the dedicated Music Director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra from 2006 to 2018. Born in Germany, Mickelthwate received his degree from the Peabody Institute of Music (Baltimore, Maryland). After making his European debut with the Hamburg Symphony in April 2006, Mickelthwate has appeared as guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, Brooklyn Philharmonic and symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Indianapolis, Nashville, New Jersey, Oregon, Toronto and San Antonio. He has conducted for the Queen of England, former President Jimmy Carter, and was awarded a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012). Mickelthwate is the newly appointed Music Director of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and Music Director Emerirus of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Of Mickelthwate’s many achievements, his dedication to developing Winnipeg’s New Music Festival, and his instrumental role in helping to create the Sistema Winnipeg Program, a program which provides music training to children without access to recourses, highlights Mickelthwate’s legacy and dedication to building community engagement for Winnipeggers, Manitobans and beyond.

Kristin Nelson (Director) received her BFA in Visual Arts at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (2003) and MFA at Concordia University (2014). Nelson is an active arts community member and the Executive Director of Martha Street Studio. Nelson previously served on the board of directors for the Winnipeg Arts Council, the Manitoba Craft Council and the Manitoba Printmakers Association. She has been a mentor at MAWA and is on the board of the Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba. She is an artist and has exhibited work across Canada and internationally in Musée Regional de Rimouski, Parisian Laundry and Skol (Québec), Art Toronto, Art + Design IDEA/EXCHANGE and edition Toronto 2 (Ontario), and at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, La Maison des artistes visuels francophone, Plug In ICA, Actual and RAW Gallery (Manitoba) and Museo Textil de Oaxaca (Mexico). In addition to Nelson’s many awards, achievements and grants for her work, Nelson completed a three-month Canada Council International Residency at Artspace in Sydney, Australia, (2015) which lead to Sidney Sydney an installation of video and sound. She was featured in Superimposition: Sculpture and Image, at Plug In ICA in 2016 and is part of both the upcoming group exhibition Behind Closed Doors at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and a duo exhibition at Neutral Ground.