Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art’s Summer Institute is pleased to present three lectures this week by visiting artists and curators. All lectures are free. Everyone is welcome.

Tuesday July 10th, 7pm 

Alona Rodeh is an Israel-based multi-media artist. After receiving her BFA in 2003 and her MFA in 2009 at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Rodeh has participated in numerous exhibitions in Israel and abroad: The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon; Herzliya Museum, Ashdod and Petach Tikva Museum of Art; as well as in Biennials and special commissioned works like the Art TLV artist-curator project, the Herzliya Biennial, the Petach Tikva Museum of Art, and the Ashdod Museum of Art. Her work spans from large-scale sculpture and time based installation to event oriented interventions, and can be described as object performances without performers.

Presented in collaboration with the University of Manitoba ARCH2 Gallery and Border Crossings magazine. With the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, State of Israel and Artis.

Wednesday, July 11th, 7pm

Sylvie Gilbert is currently the director of Artexte in Montreal, a centre dedicated to the study, the documentation and the interpretation of documents produced in the field of contemporary visual arts. The various positions she has held in arts organizations, museums and public galleries have included senior curator at the Walter Phillips Gallery and the Banff International Curatorial Institute at the Banff Centre (2004-2008), and director/curator of the Liane and Danny Taran Gallery at the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts in Montreal (2001-2004). Gilbert acted as the Canadian Commissioner for Catherine Richards for the Sydney Biennale (2004). She has curated numerous exhibitions, the most recent include: alt publication.artists.contemporary.mtl.ottawa.gimli, Pickpocket Almanack Project, Artissima, Italy (2010); Derek Sullivan and Gareth Long: The Illustrated Dictionary of Received Ideas (2010); Bureau de Change (2008); Micah Lexier’s Touch Paper Once: Selected Documents from the Walter Phillips Gallery Archive 1976 – 2007(2008); Garry Neill Kennedy: Simple Functionalism (2008); Dagmara Genda: Screamers and Bangers: The Wallpaper Project (2008), and Comic Craze (2006) among others. She has also edited numerous publications including the latest two issues ofSupplément, a periodical published by Éditions Artextes.

Sylvie Gilbert’s talk is presented with support in part by Francofonds.

Thursday July 12th, 7pm

Andrew Kearney is an Irish mixed media installation artist. He studied fine art at Limerick College of Art and Design, and completed an MA in sculpture at Chelsea College of Art and Design. He won the Barclays Young Artist award at the Serpentine Gallery, London in 1992. The same year, he was awarded a fellowship at the PS1 studios of contemporary art in New York, then returned to London in 1993, and developed an installation for the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin. The following year he developed installations for the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, the Camden Arts Centre, London and the Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario. Site-specific work led to collaborative architecture and public art projects, including a commission for Heathrow Terminal One with architect, Nicholas Grimshaw, and the Public Art Development Trust. In 2001 Kearney worked with Glen Howell architects on their Millennium Project for Westminster Council and on the Courtyard Interface for South Thames College, London and the Public Arts Commission Agency. In 2001/2002 he completed two large installations in Ireland, With Intent, Limerick and Illumination at the Boiler House in Ballymun, Dublin. In 2004 he was commissioned to develop an artwork entitled, Art Wall, in the new chambers of Limerick County Council. In 2004 Kearney completed his second residency on the Informal Architecture program at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Last year he completed a research program funded by the AHRC at Middlesex College of Art, London, which looked at how we inhabit a purpose built environment of an art campus. Two books were published: Phase 2, 2007 and theSpaces Buildings Make, 2008, culminating in an installation on the South Bank for the London Architecture Biennale. His recent projects include interactive lighting for the Wexford Opera House in Ireland, entitled, Liquid Mountain, 2009, Hull, England, and Art in Empty Spaces, 2010, Tate Britain, 2011.

Plug In ICA’s Summer Institute is supported by RBC Emerging Artist Fund and The Winnipeg Foundation.