Plug In ICA is pleased to present Question Period and the launch of Group Text on Thursday. May 21st to mark the last event in an extensive series of programs related to the exhibition Yesterday Was Once Tomorrow (A, Brick is a Tool).

For this evening we will host the first iteration of Question Period, an ongoing program that focuses on making the curatorial proposal more transparent. We have invited David Churchill, Sigrid Dahle and Shawna Dempsey, all key members of Winnipeg’s art and academic community, to ask guest curator Kegan McFadden questions about his decision-making in relation to Yesterday Was Once Tomorrow (or, A Brick is a Tool). The discussion will take the form of a Q&A session that works to unpack notions behind the exhibition, publicly debating its successes and failures.

Working together as Group Text, artists/editors Letch Kinloch, Kegan McFadden, and Collin Zipp will launch the premiere (and possibly the final) issue of a new magazine as part of Yesterday Was Once Tomorrow (or, A Brick is a Tool). Unbound, experimental, and produced in a limited edition, Group Text magazine will focus on issues pertaining to the printed word, criticism in contemporary art, the revisitation of past works, and the promotion of artist projects. Come get your copy before they disappear for twenty years.

David Churchill is a Professor of History at the University of Manitoba, cultural critic, and curator. His research focuses on US history, queer sexuality, cultural expression, and political organizing. Along with Frank Livingston he co-curated the Hole in the Wall Gallery and co-directed the short film “Sandy: The Long Dark Tea Room of the Soul” which is currently making the rounds of the film festival circuit.

Sigrid Dahle, a recent graduate of the School of Art – University of Manitoba MFA studio program, is a Winnipeg-based artist-curator and art writer who has been thinking, conversing, writing, reading, mentoring, speaking, teaching and making exhibitions for over 20 years. In 2011-12 she was part of the international curatorial team that produced My Winnipeg, a group exhibition of work by Winnipeg-based artists which travelled to Maison Rouge, Paris, MIAM, Sète, France and Plug In, Winnipeg. Currently she is working on a multi-component curatorial project that conceptualizes ceramics as a discourse. In 2014 she received an individual artists grant from the Winnipeg Arts Council for “Dropping a Manitoba-Made Urinal 98 Years After the Case of Mr. Mutt, 2015”, a performative, photo-based conceptual art project and accompanying bookwork.

Shawna Dempsey, along with her collaborator Lorri Millan, have had performances and videos exhibited in diverse venues as far-ranging as women’s centres in Sri Lanka to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. This Winnipeg-based duo has created installations (such as Archaeology and You for the Royal Ontario Museum) and books (such as Bedtime Stories for the Edge of the World, Arbeiter Ring Press). To most, however, they are known simply as the Lesbian Rangers. Shawna and Lorri were Adjunct curators for many years at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Dempsey is now Co-Executive Director, along with Dana Kletke, of Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art.

Plug In ICA gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council as well as our generous donors, valued members and dedicated volunteers.

For general information please contact: info@plugin.org

For media inquiries please contact: Janique Vigier at janique@plugin.org or by telephone at (204) 942-104 ext 27.