Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art announced the appointment of our new Executive Director/Curator, Nadja Pelkey. After a careful and considered search that attracted national and international candidates, Pelkey was selected by the search committee for her collaborative, critical, relationship-centered, and research-driven approach to curatorial, strategic, and community-based work.

Nadja Pelkey is an Artist and Curator based in Waawiyatanong (Windsor, ON across the river from Detroit, MI). She holds an MFA from the University of Guelph, and brings over 15 years of experience in the arts including academic and leadership positions. Recently, Pelkey worked in curatorial, programming, and community-engaged roles at Art Windsor-Essex, collaborating across departments to lead digital strategy, cross‑sector collaborations, public art initiatives, research, and digital projects like the forthcoming Iain Baxter&: What’s the Big Idea?.

Nadja will be joining the team in June 2026. She looks forward to meeting the Manitoba artistic community at the opening of Sarah Anne Johnson's exhibition, House on Fire, opening June 4 at 7PM.

"My vision for Plug In ICA is grounded in respect for the institution’s more than fifty‑year history as a pivotal space for contemporary practice. Plug In has consistently championed experimentation, exchange, critical inquiry, and the vital role of artists in our cultural landscape. Through the last five decades, Plug In has remained committed to research-driven exhibitions, rigorous interpretation, and public engagement across local, national, and international contexts. It is an honor to join Plug In at this marker in its institutional history, and to celebrate that history with the forthcoming anniversary publication, Plug In 50/10.

I look forward to building relationships with artists, community members, and organizational partners both locally and internationally. I am excited to work with Plug In’s formidable staff who all contribute their significant talents and expertise to the gallery and its programs.

It is important to me that what we build at Plug In feels particular to the community, with a clear perspective that affirms Winnipeg’s belonging in international discourses. My work will attend to the structure and relational position of Plug In as an ICA, crafted to be self-reflective and agile, to consider its own belonging, to afford opportunities for artists to develop ideas, experiment, invent and contribute to a larger world-building field."

-Nadja Pelkey