Fall 2015
As part of the 2015 Fall Program, Plug In ICA offered a tour of the solo exhibition Mother of This Domain by acclaimed artist Aleksandra Domanovic alongside a workshop led by local artist Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline.
Often utilizing the web as a tool, medium, and organizing principle, Mother of This Domain artist Aleksandra Domanović investigates how existing images and information circulate in an era of constantly developing digital media. She embraces the use of digital technology in the creation of her work while remaining cautious of technological advances, often exploring speculative narratives driven by the relationships between people and technology. Domanović has received critical acclaim for her highly researched works on the history of media and technology specifically relating to women. She explores narratives that investigate diverse cultures from pioneering female computer programmers to cyber-feminism. Allowing personal narratives and inclinations to enter her work she challenges notions of authoritative truth and objective histories. The exhibition Mother of This Domain at Plug In ICA brought together a body of work that span her practice, including her serial projectsPaper Stacks and The Belgrade Hand as well the video From Yu to Me and two installation-based works SOHO (Substances of Human Origin) and Things to Come.
Another work presented as part of the exhibition was the timeline The Future was at Her Fingertips, which presented many of the events and themes that reoccur throughout Domanović’s projects. Though many of these events are seemingly unrelated, they explore a historical narrative created by embracing personal inclinations and pursuing diverse information to develop a complex and highly detailed subjective history. In conjunction with the exhibition, Plug In invited Winnipeg-based artist Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline to develop a workshop that engaged with both the body and technology and the presentation of information. Students were asked to develop their own timeline, interspersing historical events with their own subjective events and memories that related to technology. In addition, students created a series of drawings based on their projections of the future.
Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline was born in Winnipeg. He received a BFA from the University of Manitoba and an MFA from Columbia University. Recent solo exhibitions include: Mangle & Plexus, at Katharine Mulherin, Toronto, Nervous Lattice, at Battat Contemporary, Montréal, Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline: Recent Paintings and Drawings, at Mullherin Pollard, New York, Krisjanis’ work has been featured in recent group exhibitions including: Looking Up: Contemporary Connections with Inuit Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Re-Configuring Abstraction at the School of Art Gallery, University of Manitoba, Indivisible at Foreman Art Gallery in Québec, Here We Aren’t So Quickly at Thierry Goldberg in New York, The Pheonix Art: The Renewed Art of Contemporary Painting, curated by Robert Enright at Simon Blaise in Montréal, and The Open at Deitch Studios in New York.
Krisjanis was a semi-finalist in the 2011 RBC Canadian Painting Competition. In 2011 he was also the recipient of a Canada Council for the Arts, Research and Creation Grant. Krisjanis currently lives and works in Winnipeg where he is an instructor at the University of Manitoba.
File Download:
Fall 2015 Teachers Guide: Aleksandra Domanovic Mother of this Domain