On February 26, 2022 at 7pm CDT Plug In ICA presented Manuel Mathieu in conversation with Ekene Maduka, an artist talk by Manuel Mathieu as part of his solo exhibition ‘World Discovered Under Other Skies’, on display from January 14, 2022 – April 3, 2022.

Click here to learn more about the exhibition at Plug In ICA, which was organized and circulated by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, sponsored by the TD Ready Commitment and supported by Lead Donors Steven & Lynda Latner; and Major Donors Fonds Hamelys, Pamela J. Joyner, and Jay Smith & Laura Rapp.  

Manuel Mathieu (b. 1986 in Port-au-Prince, lives and works in Montreal). He received his BFA from Université du Québec à Montréal and his MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London. Mathieu was an artist in residence at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (2019-20), and the Pamela Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida residency program, Sonoma CA (2019). Recent solo exhibitions have been held at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2020); HDM Gallery, Beijing (2019); The Armory Show, New York (2018); Tiwani Contemporary, London (2017); and Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2015). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions held in Canada, the United States, and Europe, including Fondation Phi, Montreal (2020); Pérez Art Museum Miami (2019); Frieze London (2018); Art Basel (2017); and Grand Palais, Paris (2014). Mathieu was one of the artists recognized by the 2020 Sobey Art Award.

Ekene Emeka-Maduka is a Nigerian artist who primarily works through painting. Her work arises out of, but is not exclusive to, personal experiences and her relation to place. Often centering her own likeness in her paintings, she engages with notions of the ever-evolving ‘self’ as it relates to her physical, cognitive, and other liminal environments. Maduka is currently based in Winnipeg (Treaty 1). She has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work has been collected by several private collectors including activist Janet Mock and actor Jessie Williams.

Amin Alsaden is a curator, educator, and scholar of art and architecture, whose work focuses on transnational solidarities and exchanges across cultural boundaries. With a commitment to advancing social justice through the arts, Alsaden’s curatorial practice contributes to the dissemination of more diverse, inclusive, and global narratives, by decentering and expanding existing canons, and challenging hegemonic knowledge and power structures. He is particularly interested in how artists and architects interrogate collective agency in the public realm and level institutional critique, while envisioning novel visual and spatial responses to the experiences of alienation and belonging. Alsaden’s research explores the history and theory of modern and contemporary art and architecture globally, with specific expertise in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Having taught at several institutions at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, Alsaden regularly serves as an invited lecturer and critic at art, curatorial, and design programs. He teaches at several institutions, and has published and lectured widely.