Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art’s Summer Institute 2014 is pleased to present four events this week by local and visiting artists and curators. All events are free and everyone is welcome.

DATE | Monday, July 21st, 7PM
LOCATION | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art 

Plug In ICA is pleased to present three talks by visiting artists “on Feminist Surplus” by Lois Klassen, “The potential of socially-engaged art” by Angel Chen, and a talk by Girl Gang Dance Party, a group comprised of melinda topilko and Lindsay Joy on Monday, July 21st at 7PM in room 3BC55.

Lois Klassen’s artworks and writings are situated in local communities, while engaging in global concerns. She uses art processes like textiles, performance, curation, video, bookarts, and archiving to consider social relations. She is based in Vancouver, Canada.

Angel Chen is a Taiwanese-Canadian interdisciplinary artist. Her work involves social engagement, installation, and design. With a background in philosophy, she explores frameworks of socializing and communicating – focusing on the importance of diverse interpersonal relationships and particularly their function in sociopolitical change. Her work often involves reinventing or altering familiar social forms and public structures in order to create new dialogues. Chen splits her time between Taipei and Toronto.

A recent graduate from the Alberta College of Art + Design, and half of the collaborative duo – Girl Gang Dance Party – melinda topilko will be discussing her personal practice that includes multidimensional installations, photography, projections and curatorial projects.

In her practice, Lindsay Joy explores feelings of anxiety and the possibilities of their remediation using a multidisciplinary approach, which includes labour-intensive textile processes, drawings, photography, video, and written works, often including found and vernacular objects or imagery. She is also one half of the collaboration, Girl Gang Dance Party, and has recently completed her MFA at the University of Manitoba.

DATE | Tuesday, July 22, 2 to 3PM
LOCATION | Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art 

Ming Hon will have an open rehearsal from 2-3pm on Tuesday, July 22 at Plug In ICA in Gallery 4. She will be documenting research from her time at the Summer Institute, where she has been working with incorporating video cameras with live feed projections into her dance and performance practice. The public is invited to this informal showing of small studies which also features dancers Carol-Ann Bohrn and Hilary Bergen. The event is free and all are welcome to attend, however seating is limited, and will be provided on a first come, first serve basis.  Please note the dancers will also show some of the live performance studies on Saturday, July 26th at the Summer Institute Open Studios from 2-3PM.

Ming Hon is an independent dancer, choreographer, and performance artist based in Winnipeg. Her practice looks into themes of cultural identity, hybridization, and race, as well as the economy and politics of the female body.

DATE | Wednesday, July 23rd, 7PM
LOCATION | Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art | 611 Main Street

Plug In ICA is pleased to announce that Israeli, Miami-based independent curator and writer Tami Katz-Freiman wil be giving a public lecture about her curatorial practice on Wednesday, July 23rd at 7PM at Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art.

At her lecture, Katz-Freiman will provide a window into her practice. Among her many varied interests, she has researched the link between feminist-oriented theories and craft-based contemporary art. Her unique position as one who straddles the worlds of museums, university galleries and commercial galleries on two continents will offer a perspective on the international art scene.

Between 2005 and 2010, Tami Katz-Freiman was the Chief Curator of the Haifa Museum of Art. Before and since, she has worked as an independent curator, art historian and art critic. She has curated numerous exhibitions for Israel’s most prominent museums and institutions, including Antipathos: Black Humor, Irony, and Cynicism (1993) for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Meta-Sex 94: Identity, Body, and Sexuality (1994) for the Ein Harod Museum of Art, OverCraft: Obsession, Decoration and Biting Beauty (2003) for the Art Gallery of Haifa University and the Artist’s House in Tel Aviv, Love is in the Air: Images of Romantic Love in Contemporary Israeli Art (2004), a group exhibition for Time for Art, Tel Aviv, and Critical Mass: Contemporary Art from India (2012, co-curated with Rotem Ruff) for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. In the United States, Katz-Freiman produced Desert Cliché (1996-8, co-curated with Amy Cappellazzo), which debuted at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida and toured to the Grey Art Gallery & Study Center of New York University, the Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. She also curated LandEscapes (2002, co-curated with Cheryl Harper) at Drexel University, Moore College of Art and The Gershman Y in Philadelphia, Time Capsule (2003), an international group show of contemporary artists dealing with the notion of archaeology for Art in General, New York, and UNNATURAL (2012) at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach. In addition to essays for the catalogues and books published in conjunction with the exhibitions she has curated, Katz-Freiman has written numerous articles and reviews addressing various issues in contemporary art for Studio Art Magazine (Israel’s foremost art publication), ARTnews and Art Papers, and has contributed essays to anthologies, including “Bad Girls—The Israeli Version: Contemporary Women Artists in Israel” in Jewish Feminism in Israel: Some Contemporary Perspectives. Katz-Freiman has also taught art history at the Kalisher School of Art and Technology, Tel Aviv and at the Art History department of the Tel Aviv University.

Tami Katz-Freiman’s visit is made possible through the Foreign Visiting Artist Program, Canada Council for the Arts.

DATE | Thursday, July 24, 7PM
LOCATION | Urban Shaman | 203-290 McDermot Avenue 

Lisa Lipton will be screening “get outta my mind and into my heart…” as part of her ongoing project THE IMPOSSIBLE BLUE ROSE on Thursday, July 24th at 7PM at Urban Shaman. The talk is free and everyone is welcome to attend.

Maritime-born artist, Lisa Lipton (a.k.a. FRANKIE) is a multidisciplinary visual artist, musician and director who received her BFA from NSCAD University in 2003, and MFA from the University of Windsor. Her work exemplifies a diversity of interest within the arts as she explores the potential for crossing genres of film, mixed media installation, performance, theatre and music. Her visions are reflective of an interest in directorial and curatorial practices, collaboration and social interaction, as well as working within non-traditional contexts in order to explore the boundaries of performance and filmic production. She has currently completed a major tour throughout North America with her latest drumming project – BLAST BEATS: Phase Three, which will culminate in her first feature film – THE IMPOSSIBLE BLUE ROSE. She has exhibited her work on both a national and international level, and most recently served as one of the long list representatives for the Maritime Provinces with the Sobey Art Awards (2012 & 2013).