Plug In Editions Online

Inaugural Issue: Take One | Guest Edited by Chukwudubem Ukaigwe

Featuring: Ekene Emeka-Maduka, Annie Beach, Iyunade Judah, Cassandra Cochrane, and Eve Tagny

Since April 2020, Plug In ICA has been working on a new project as a result of the pandemic. We have been in conversation about how to best serve our communities as so much of our programming has moved online. A fundamental feature of Plug In ICA’s mandate is its educational programming. How then could we continue offering opportunities for education and professional development specifically to emerging artists, despite the disruptions caused by the pandemic?

We needed to adapt and re-envision the structural format of our content. Instead of a short-term solution to a problem that will continue to impact our lives, we decided that implementing long term vision would be the most beneficial to securing the possibility of serving our communities as the world continues to shift. We are a contemporary art institution dedicated to social practice, so how else could we make our space accessible and dynamic as we go virtual? How can we create a digital space for knowledge-production and dissemination that could further constitute a place where we gather in order to think and heal together? For these reasons, we are launching Plug In Editions Online that will seek to enhance Plug In’s mandate in providing opportunities to create. The biannual online publication takes the form of a webpage permanently accessible via Plug In’s homepage. We worked with designers Ali Shamas Qadeer and Chris Lee to create the wireframe for the publication’s website. Each issue of Plug In Editions Online will be edited by a guest editor.

The online publication will exist as a resource for artists concerned about issues of production and distribution of artwork in the present digital context, which will enable artists in new media as well as all disciplines to describe, shape and lead its content. “Take One,” the inaugural issue edited by Chukwudubem Ukaigwe, features five conversations with Ekene Emeka-Maduka, Annie Beach, Cassandra Cochrane, Eve Tagny, and Iyunade Judah who work in the field of contemporary art in all its forms and modes. The interviews address issues that are pressing for artists as they manage and navigate the shut downs, and as they continue forming their practice throughout this uncertain and precarious time.