Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is very delighted to announce the new Plug In Edition:
Lori Blondeau: I’m Not Your Kinda Princess
Edited by Luther Konadu, Tom Kohut and Bojana Videkanic
Book design by Taylor Jolin, an Ojibwe artist and graphic designer based in Bawaating.
Published by Plug In Editions, 2015
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is very delighted to announce the release of our new publication, Lori Blondeau: I’m Not Your Kinda Princess.
After years of planning, in the spring of 2021, we mounted a solo exhibition by renowned Winnipeg-based artist Lori Blondeau. Coinciding with the artist’s honour by the Governor’s General Award, the exhibition reflected on a selected range of Blondeau’s thirty-plus-year practice, paired together with a newly commissioned sculptural and auditory installation. The entire exhibition encompassed both of our galleries and opened to an especially uncertain time in the world, when, owing to a global pandemic, many public gatherings were restricted or completely prohibited. Several cultural institutions took required precautions regarding their services to the wider public, halting and limiting the rollout of programming or finding alternative ways to offer programs to audiences. Plug In ICA was no different in this respect, and as a result, this exhibition was extended and on view for five consecutive months, allowing necessary time for as many visitors as possible. Traces of this period even influenced aspects of the exhibition’s commissioned work. In the years that followed, the exhibition toured to Montreal at Dazibao and, in 2024, was remounted at the McMaster Museum of Art. These iterations of the exhibition allowed for new audiences beyond our locality. Building on the exhibition tour, this new publication sought to provide access to a broader audience who weren’t able to see it in person and, in some small way, immortalize Blondeau’s culturally meaningful work for anyone, anywhere, in the future who may be fortunate enough to discover it for the first time.
Readers of the book will encounter thoughtful writings on Blondeau’s impactful work, with perspectives from celebrated artist and friend Rebecca Belmore, Michif curator and scholar Cathy Mattes, and mentees of Blondeau, artists Annie Beach and Chukwudubem Ukaigwe. Additionally, the original exhibition essay by Anishinaabe curator Franchesca Hebert-Spence has been included, along with an expansive conversation she conducted with Blondeau as part of an associated program to the exhibition. Documentation of the exhibition at the Plug In galleries and the tour is also featured in the book.
It is the hope that Blondeau’s power as a creative voice and visual storyteller will reach many near and far, and that this publication can enable that in its own way.
Lori Blondeau is Cree/Saulteaux/Métis from Saskatchewan. Since the 1990s, Blondeau’s artistic practice in the fields of performance, photography and installation, along with her curatorial work and activities as co-founder and Executive Director of the Indigenous art collective TRIBE, has proved decisive to the ever-increasing centrality of Indigenous art and knowledge production in Canada.
For wholesale information and further inquiries please contact Book Store Manager, Gabby Gatbonton at bookstore@plugin.org.
Hardcover
208 pages
Colour images
7 x 9 inches
ISBN: 978-0-921381-62-4
$25
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
Online
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