TOXICITY

Plug In ICA, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

December 6, 2013 - February 8, 2014

TOXICITY was the inaugural exhibition, conference and workshop of a series of international exhibitions and symposiums surrounding the notion of toxicities in the contemporary world. This premier exhibition, co-curated by Dr. Melentie Pandilovski (Director of Video Pool, Winnipeg) and Dr. Jennifer Willet (Director, INCUBATOR Lab, The University of Windsor) highlighted the growing Canadian biotech arts community within an international context. It presented artworks by emerging and established Canadian and international artists utilizing biological media to explore real and perceived toxic byproducts and outcomes affiliated with biotechnology, biosecurity, biomedicine, and biopolitics.

The works in the exhibition conveyed the stories of the artists’ approaches to biotech and include research into: biopolitical conflicts in the real and virtual worlds involving NGOs, governments and corporations; energy control and the choice of fuel material and alternative energy sources; the causes and consequences of environmental change; the topic of environmental sustainability; micro- and macro-ecology; life, GM products, death and appearance. With these themes in mind, the artists selected presented an array of approaches, from the humorous and playful to the deadly serious, exploring the ways we think about the origins of life, the scale and dimensions of living matter and the nature of nourishment, death, fashion and appearance.

The following artists were curated for the exhibition: Trish Adams (Brisbane, Australia), Alana Bartol (Windsor), CAE (Buffalo, USA), Joe Davis (Cambridge, MA, USA), Tangny Duff (Montreal), Aganetha Dyck (Winnipeg), Ted Heibert (Seattle, USA), Natalie Jeremijenko (NY, USA), David Khang (Vancouver), Andrew E Pelling (Ottawa), Niki Sperou (Adelaide, Australia) Reva Stone (Winnipeg), Amanda White (Toronto), Elaine Whittaker (Toronto), Jennifer Willet (Windsor) with Jeanette Groenendaal and Zoot Derks (Amsterdam, Holland).

My installation, I Caught it at The Movies, was shown in this exhibition. I Caught it at The Movies was originally shown at The Red Head Gallery in Toronto in the exhibition Ambient Plagues in 2013.