“We all need a place for play, whether it’s jump rope, base-ball, or making a sculpture… My knitting-yarn sculpture is a somewhat distant cousin to some other string games. Maybe the one that uses the most space is kite flying. But the one that is the oldest, and the most universal is cat’s cradle.” – Fred Sandback, “Children’s Guide to Seeing”, Contemporary Arts Museum, Texas, 1989.

Evoking Sandback’s relationship to play on Sunday, February 26^th from 11:00am-12:00pm, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art will host a cat’s cradle workshop with artist and educator, Hannah Doucet.

For this workshop, Doucet will trace a brief cross-cultural history of string games that she will activate through demonstration and instruction. Participants will have the opportunity to playfully engage Sandback’s work through the materiality of string—its accessibility and malleability within his sculptures. The experiments with string will evolve from the creation of individual forms to collaborative games expanding to involve the production of multi-person, large-scale constructions.

The workshop will be 40 minutes to an hour and is open to children ages 6 and up. Everyone welcome! Juice and snacks will be served.

Hannah Doucet is a photo-based artist from Winnipeg, Canada whose art practice incorporates a range of media and material including sculpture, textile, video, and installation. Often engaged with the body, Doucet’s work explores the abilities and failures implicit within visual representation and material. Doucet received her BFA, honours from the University of Manitoba’s School of Art in 2015. Solo exhibitions of her work include I Never Recognized Her Except In Fragments at the New Gallery, Calgary (2016) and Present Absence at C Space Gallery, Winnipeg (2015). Doucet’s work has been featured in many group exhibitions locally and nationally, recently includingProof 23 at Gallery 44, Toronto (2016), Anticipating Distance at Avenue Gallery, Vancouver (2015), and Fresh Paint, New Construction at Art Mur, Montreal (2015). In addition to being a professional artist, Doucet is a facilitator at Art City in Winnipeg.

This exhibition and related programs are generously sponsored by Michael Nesbitt.

RELATED PROGRAMS:

Thursday, March 16 | 7:00pm: Respondent Series: Talk by Howie Chen   (Angie Keefer exhibition)
Friday, March 24 | 7:00pm: Respondent Series: Talk by Edward A. Vazquez