Imogen Clendenning, Archive on Ice, 2023

Archive on Ice involves creating a digital mini archive of documentation from past Ice Follies events and a live microsite that is powered by a solar panel and hosted with a raspberry pie server. The server is housed in a protective art installation on the frozen ice of Lake Nipissing. Imogen hopes to create a reciprocal relationship with the lake and present the technology as a collaboration with the earth rather than an extraction of resources. They plan to document the process through photographs and field recordings.

Artist Bio:

Imogen Clendinning (she/her/they/them) is a settler video artist who currently resides as an uninvited guest in the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Attawandaron, and Wendat peoples, known in a colonial context, as London, Ontario. Clendinning hails from The North (Nipissing Region/North Bay, ON), where she developed her creative language and acted as a community builder and volunteer coordinator at The White Water Gallery. Most recently, Clendinning occupied the role of Programming Coordinator at Artcite Inc. (Waawiiyaatanong/Windsor, ON), where they focused on the cultivation of emerging artist practices through arts advocacy and contemporary programming. She is most proud of her work in establishing the Waawiiyaatanong BIPOC Artist-in-Residence program, for the development of works by emerging artists of colour in the Windsor-Essex region, which will celebrate its third year in 2022. In January of 2021, Clendinning curated the online exhibition End of Daze, featuring the works of Kiera Boult, Samantha Noseworthy and Rihkee Strapp. The exhibition centred around the use of Y2K aesthetics and nostalgia as a means of engaging in critical discussions about white supremacy, decolonization, race and feminism.​

In her artistic practice, Clendinning often considers how femininity is shaped by popular cinema, using VHS tapes to de-construct tropes and signifiers used in cult film. Her research uses sexploitation films and antiquated technologies to investigate how media images can shape identities and inform our individualized relationships to the lived world. Clendinning’s video-works incorporate themes such as sexuality, violence and the inherent anti-capitalism of degraded images. In 2019, Clendinning completed an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of Windsor. Clendinning has screened their found footage works through the White Water Gallery (North Bay, ON), Pleasuredome (Tkaronto) and the Forest City Film Festival (London, ON). Clendinning holds an MFA from the University of Windsor, an MA in Art History and Curatorial Study at Western University, and they are currently pursuing a PhD in Art and Visual Culture at Western University, with a focus on DIY digital archives and environmentally sustainable networks.

Social Links:

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/imogenclendinning
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imogenclendinning/?hl=en