http://nicolassassoon.com/NATURE_FALLS.html

Throughout the summer of 2015, Plug In ICA presents Nature Falls, a serial exhibition of digital works by Nicolas Sassoon on our monitor wall. As part of our public programs in conjunction with Sassoon’s exhibition, we have invited artists and writers, Alex Snukal, Alex Quicho, Tiziana La Melia, Jinhan Ko and Andrew Berardini, to respond individually to one of the five animations in the exhibition. The responses, which are intended to be immediate and somewhat poetic, will take a variety of forms from textual narratives or critical readings to sound works, drawing, photograph, etc. with the stipulation that they be presented online.

London-based artist and writer Alex Quicho is the second to respond to Nature Falls, specifically to Sunny Lands, a digital animation of undulating pixels moving in blue bands representative of the illusion of heat waves across a sharp blue sky. Sunny Lands is part of a series of 3 animated works titled The Green City Between Sea and Sky, in reference to the city of La Grande Motte, a seaside resort in the south east of France built at the end of the 1960s by Jean Balladur. The city displays an unusual architecture and urbanism inspired by the Mayan Pyramids and garden city layouts. Each title in the series refers to the name of a building in La Grande Motte. More largely, the series stems from cultural elements of coastal resorts in France and the mythologies built around them.

Quicho’s written response is a poetic narrative in which the narrator is immersed in a sensorial landscape that quickly dissolves subject into other. The scene makes reference to Bhanu Kapil’s idea of the “humanimal prerogative”, in which personal and postcolonial histories cross. Quicho is highly influenced by postcolonial aesthetics: namely, the use of fragmented images to create sensory records of specific events.

The responses are framed together with the exhibition accumulating over the coming months. To view Sassoon’s work and Quicho’s response, please follow the link: http://nicolassassoon.com/NATURE_FALLS.html

On Friday, August 7th, Plug In ICA will be launching a new work by Sassoon,Red Sea. Jinhan Ko’s response will be published on Friday, August 14^th.

Nature Falls is a selection of Nicolas Sassoon’s work that represents the natural environment from the landscape to meteorological occurrences. The artist often uses nature as his subject matter, capturing the movement of the ocean as it hits the shore or the rain falling on a window, through a layering of distinct pixelated colours. Each saturated square retains its individual shape but it is amassed to create a graphic digital pattern that replicates the movement of organic forms. Just as the flow of a waterfall can mesmerize, Sassoon’s animations form hypnotic fields. Through the window, and in Sassoon’s case, the computer screen, he sets himself and the viewer outside into a plane of movement and colour.

BIOS: Alex MF Quicho is an artist and writer. Her works in graphite approach decolonization, dystopia, paranoia, and female agency, among other things. She writes about cultural rupture and contemporary art. In 2014, she foundedHighway, a publication for experimental production. She is currently pursuing an MA in Critical Writing in Art and Design at the Royal College of Art, London, UK.

Nicolas Sassoon is recognized for his digital animation, which he presents and distributes online, as well as for his projections that create immersive installations which respond to architectural space, both articulating and fabricating the built environment. Sassoon has exhibited internationally at venues and events such as the 319 Scholes, New York; May Gallery, New Orleans; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; PRETEEN Gallery, Madrid; the Centre d’Art Bastille Grenoble, France; Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam; Victoria & Albert Museum London, UK, and Today Art Museum, Beijing, China. Often collaborating with other artists, architects, music producers, and fashion designers, he is also a member of the online collective Computers Club and a founder of the collective W-A-L-L-P-A-P-E-R-S.

Plug In ICA gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, Winnipeg Arts Council and the RBC Foundation 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.