Call for Applications: Plug In ICA Fall Institute 2026

Distortion study for Plug In ICA, 2026. Courtesy of the artist.

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is excited to announce Fall Institute Citing the World: Points of Interreference led by Faculty Raymond Boisjoly

Application Deadline: July 31, 2026
Program Dates: September 14 – 26, 2026

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is now accepting applications for our 2026 Fall Institute, Citing the World: Points of Interreference, led by 2026 Guggenheim fellowship recipient, Raymond Boisjoly.

Established in 2009, The Fall Institute is a free, international artist research program for professional artists and cultural workers in all disciplines and media. Each year, we invite artists that are critically leading conversations in their field to lead a two week Institute. Each iteration of the Institute invites participants to expand upon their own interests and projects and includes opportunities to work in a collaborative peer-to-peer environment through group activities, guest lectures and workshops.

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
– Philip K. Dick

The 2026 Fall Institute will concern the idea of interreference in considering art not as a practice of representation, but as a practice of citation.

To cite is to establish a relation between varied phenomena. Forms of knowledge do not emerge in isolation from one another. They develop through encounters with things which already exist. This program explores interreference by staging encounters between distinct bodies of knowledge that generate new forms of understanding. When a distinct practice frames an encounter with the material world, what is being cited is both the world itself and the work which provides access to it. Moving beyond questions of representation, it considers how art establishes correspondences between disparate histories, materials, concepts, disciplines, and traditions. Rather than asking what an artwork stands for, the program asks how it connects, translates, transforms, and reconfigures existing forms of knowledge.

Through research, discussion, experimentation, and sustained engagement with specialized fields of practice, participants will consider art as a method of citing the world. Particular attention will be given to the ways knowledge travels between contexts, how methods developed in one realm may be made useful in another, and how new conceptual possibilities emerge through unforeseen encounters. The program approaches the artwork not a representation of something beyond itself, but as a singular point through which diverse forms of knowledge converge and acquire new significance.

Rather than treating worlds as pre-existing objects awaiting depiction, the program approaches them as relational constructions assembled through acts of citation, collection, and invention.

There is no fee to participate in the Fall Institute but participants will be responsible for their own travel and accommodations while in Winnipeg.

Visit here to apply.

Applications are due by 5pm CT on July 31, 2026.

Spots are limited and applicants will be notified of their results by early August. Plug In thanks all those who applied, only successful applicants will be contacted.

Faculty

Raymond Boisjoly is an artist and Haida citizen. His work is derived from his training in photography and engages diverse forms of production including writing and craft-based approaches. He uses various machines and equipment related to output and construction to capture technological processes interwoven with subject matter centered on cultural propriety, humour, and poetic-prophetic texts of mysterious origins.

Boisjoly has been included in numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally. In 2026, he was awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Boisjoly is an Associate Professor at the School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU. He is represented by Catriona Jeffries.

Acknowledgements

We are on Treaty 1 Territory. Plug In ICA is located on the territories of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and the National homeland of the Red River Métis. Our water is sourced from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation.

The 2026 Fall Institute is made possible through a generous contribution from Heritage Canada’s Canada Arts Training Fund.

Plug In ICA extends our heartfelt gratitude to our generous donors, valued members, and dedicated volunteers. We acknowledge the sustaining support of our Director’s Circle. You all make a difference.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We could not operate without their continued financial investment and lobbying efforts.

Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at plugin.org/support or by contacting Nadja Pelkey, Director/Curator at executivedirector@plugin.org.

For more information on public programming, exhibitions and general information, contact info@plugin.org or call 1.204.942.1043

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art
460 Portage Avenue, Unit 1
Winnipeg, MB R3C 0E8
plugin.org

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Accessibility: Plug In ICA is fully accessible. For more information, contact info@plugin.org.