The Power Plant

In Mike Nelson's labyrinthine installations, viewers are immersed in evocative constructions that suggest traces of human habitation and abandonment to reveal history, memory and social networks. Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick will discuss the affective turn in art and theory in relation to Nelson's work, and how compelling presences are generated through the shaping of mood, feeling and atmosphere.

Fisher and Drobnick are the editors of the Journal of Curatorial Studies, and founding members of the curatorial collaborative DisplayCult, which has produced exhibitions, conferences and publications since 1998 and aims to rethink exhibition prototypes by amplifying sensory aesthetics, interrogating the diverse histories of display, and engaging with the performative aspects of presentation.

Jennifer Fisher is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Curatorial Studies at York University, Toronto. Her research focuses on exhibition practices, affect theory, and the aesthetics of the non-visual senses. Her writiings have been featured in anthologies such as The Ashgate Reseach Companion to Paranormal Culture (2013) and The Senses in Performance (2006), and journals such as Art Journal, Border/Lines, n-paradoxa and Visual Communication. She is the editor of Technologies of Intuition (2006).

Jim Drobnick is Associate Professor at OCAD University, Toronto. He has published on the visual arts, performance, the senses and postmedia practices in recent anthologies such as The Multisensory Museum (2013), Senses and the City (2011), and Art, History and the Senses (2010), and in the journals Angelaki, High Performance, Parachute, and Performance Research. His books include the anthologies Aural Cultures (2004) and The Smell Culture Reader (2006).