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The Power Plant is currently open with exhibitions Emmanuel Osahor: _To dream of other places_ and Shelagh Keeley: _Film Notebooks 1985-2017_.

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The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery is excited to announce the appointment of **Carolyn Vesely** as its first Chief Executive Officer and **Adelina Vlas** as Artistic Director, ushering in a new era of leadership for one of Canada’s leading contemporary art institutions.

These appointments come at a transformative moment as The Power Plant moves toward full independence after nearly four decades as part of Harbourfront Centre. The gallery’s new leadership structure—introducing its first CEO and establishing the new role of Artistic Director as a leadership position—signals a strong commitment to operational autonomy, curatorial excellence, and long-term sustainability. 
 
Founded in 1987, The Power Plant has played a vital role in Canada’s cultural landscape, presenting contemporary art by artists from Canada and around the world. Throughout its history, the gallery has remained dedicated to creating an open platform for ambitious art, critical dialogue, and meaningful public engagement. With free admission to exhibitions, public programs, and educational publications, The Power Plant continues to make contemporary art accessible to all. 

This year also marks a major governance milestone: for the first time in its history, The Power Plant’s Board of Directors is fully independent. New bylaws adopted unanimously by the Board made it possible to appoint its own members, select senior leadership, and oversee the gallery’s finances and strategic direction. While the gallery will continue its valued relationship with Harbourfront Centre—including rent-free use of its iconic waterfront home—this structural change positions The Power Plant to define and drive its future with clarity and confidence.

“Carolyn’s leadership has been essential to The Power Plant’s transformation,” said Paul Boniferro, President and Chair of the Board. “Her clarity of purpose, sector expertise, and collaborative approach have given us the confidence to move forward independently with vision and strength.”

Vesely, a nationally respected arts leader with more than 30 years of experience, first joined The Power Plant as Interim Executive Director before being appointed to the permanent role in 2024. Her promotion to Chief Executive Officer reflects a broader evolution in the gallery’s management and strategic direction.

Previously, Vesely served as CEO of the Ontario Arts Council, and has led major public art institutions in British Columbia and Ontario. Her deep expertise in strategic planning, policy development, and arts sector advocacy has been instrumental in shaping The Power Plant’s future.

At the core of this new chapter is a heightened focus on artistic vision. The new role of Artistic Director ensures The Power Plant’s curatorial program is not only critically rigorous but also publicly resonant and globally connected.

Adelina Vlas has been appointed to this role, reporting to CEO, Carolyn Vesely. A widely respected curator, Vlas began her career at The Power Plant as a curatorial apprentice in 2001 and returned in 2022 as Head of Curatorial Affairs after two decades of work in Canada and abroad. She now leads exhibitions and public programs with an expanded mandate.


“The Power Plant has always been about community, curiosity, and creative dialogue,” said Vesely. “Adelina embodies those values. She understands the soul of this organization and brings the vision and experience needed to lead its artistic future with insight and compassion.”

Vlas has curated significant exhibitions at The Power Plant, including _Emmanuel Osahor: To dream of other places; Shelagh Keeley: Film Notebooks 1985–2017; Jen Aitken: The Same Thing Looks Different_; and _Meriem Bennani: Life on the CAPS_. Prior to returning, she was Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, where she led major exhibitions, such as _Haegue Yang: Emergence, Hito Steyerl: This Is The Future and Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors_. She holds an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art in London and an MA in Art History from York University.

As The Power Plant embarks on this transformative chapter, Vesely and Vlas represent the combined leadership needed to guide its future, balancing strong institutional stewardship with a bold and thoughtful artistic vision. Their appointments reinforce The Power Plant’s enduring commitment to art, artists and community, while sustaining vibrant cultural dialogue both in Canada and internationally.


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The Power Plant announces new leadership, marking defining moment for future of independent art institution

The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery is delighted to announce our upcoming exhibition season with two solo presentations by Toronto-based artists **Emmanuel Osahor** and **Shelagh Keeley**. Through immersive installations that use either traditional mediums or moving images, both artists consider the complex histories and uses of gardens as built environments. Through his layered paintings, Osahor invites visitors to contemplate beauty in the seclusion of a night garden, while Keeley’s film notebooks trace the artist’s journey and her continued efforts to bring forward the intricacies and contradictions of the world we live in. The exhibitions will run from **April 11 to September 14**, 2025. Admission is free. 

“With this upcoming season, spanning from spring to fall, we are thrilled to present two exhibitions that carry us into other worlds, both imaginary and real, where we can contemplate beauty and reflect on the place and role gardens hold in our lives, especially at difficult times. The work of these two accomplished artists will, without doubt, resonate with our audiences at a moment when the promise of spring turns into 
the profusion of summer, and when the fragile balance of our world is in a continuous negotiation.” 

—Adelina Vlas, Head of Curatorial Affairs

The new exhibition season will be animated by engaging, free public programs, including thematic talks, workshops, and tours. We’re also excited to welcome families and kids aged 7-12 for an engaging new series of creative Power Kids workshops on select Sundays. Visit The Power Plant’s **[Event Calendar](https://www.thepowerplant.org/whats-on/calendar)** on our website for programming details.

Emmanuel Osahor, Room for two, 2023. Oil on canvas. Photo: Joseph Hartman.

**Emmanuel Osahor: _To dream of other places_**  
  
**Curator**  
Adelina Vlas, Head of Curatorial Affairs
 
Emmanuel Osahor’s practice focuses on beauty as a necessity for survival, respite, and sanctuary. Known primarily for his paintings of lush, verdant gardenscapes—inspired by real and imagined locations—these works meditate upon the complicated histories of these sites that entail the domestication of lands, plants, and individuals alike. _To dream of other places_ is the artist’s first major solo presentation in his home city of Toronto and includes paintings, drawings, prints, ceramic sculptures, and a new, site-specific photographic wallpaper. Conceived as a night garden, the exhibition presents Osahor’s work in a unique environment intended to immerse the viewer in a contemplative space where feelings of delight and sorrow coexist as reflections of human experience. The artist’s poetic yet critical approach to a subject that has been well represented throughout art history reflects a practice that is profoundly engaged with beauty, painting, and the everyday at a time when meaningful encounters with art are needed more than ever. 

Shelagh Keeley, still from Jardim do Ultramar / The Colonial Garden, Lisbon, Portugal, 2016. Film, 180 min. Thanks to the Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal and ifa-Galerie Stuttgart, Germany. Courtesy the artist.

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**Shelagh Keeley: _Film Notebooks 1985-2017_**  
  
**Curator**  
Adelina Vlas, Head of Curatorial Affairs  
  
At the core of Shelagh Keeley’s work is a drawing practice based on an intuitive and embodied response to readings and research in poetry, politics, cinema, and architecture. The artist applies the same approach to her work with film, where the moving image becomes a drawing notebook, a travel journal, an opportunity to bring the viewer into the spaces experienced by the artist and mediated through the lens of the hand-held camera. Since 1985, Keeley has documented on film her encounters with gardens and uniquely built environments around the world. The resulting film notebooks quietly, yet poignantly, reveal the layered histories and contexts that created them at different moments in time. From the flamboyant artificiality of a desert oasis in Las Vegas to the discipline of a Zen Garden in Kyoto, and from a colonial garden in Lisbon to the largest European zoological-botanical garden in Stuttgart, the films invite us to contemplate the complexity and intangible essence–_genius loci_ or spirit of the place–Keeley felt in these places. Filmed while walking for hours at a time as a _flâneuse_, the moving image notebooks present an invitation for the viewer to become the artist as she draws with the camera, investigating and uncovering the visceral, hidden layers of these locations.   

**About The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery ** 

The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery is Canada’s leading public gallery devoted to contemporary art, ideas, and conversations. Located at Harbourfront Centre on Toronto’s waterfront, The Power Plant is a vital forum for the creative culture of our time, sharing inspiring and transformative experiences with audiences through free admission to exhibitions and public programs. The Power Plant is guided by the commitment to provide a platform for artists from diverse backgrounds, drawing attention to pressing issues and connecting communities in Canada and worldwide through contemporary art. For more information, please visit **[thepowerplant.org](https://www.thepowerplant.org/)**. 

If you are interested in attending the Press Preview, would like to request an interview, or receive advanced images and the artist’s biographies, please email **media@thepowerplant.org**. 

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The Power Plant’s new season offers contemplative and immersive exhibitions that reflect on our complex relationships with gardens

The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery is delighted to announce its upcoming exhibition season with two solo presentations of works by Swedish visual artist Lap-See Lam and Canadian multidisciplinary artist Charles Campbell. Through immersive installations, both artists reflect on concepts relating to memory, movement, and the ocean. The exhibitions run from September 21, 2024, to March 2, 2025. Admission is free.  
  
“This season, we are delighted to present two extraordinary exhibitions that invite us to consider diverse narratives that inform our current historic moment. From a profound engagement with nature and its healing powers to a personal exploration of the diasporic condition, the themes of these two exhibitions will undoubtedly captivate the imagination of our visitors.” — Adelina Vlas, Head of Curatorial Affairs  
  
The exhibitions will be accompanied by a vibrant lineup of free public programs, encouraging visitors to engage through artist talks, workshops, and tours. We look forward to welcoming families to a series of creative Power Kids workshops designed for children aged 7–12. Join us on select Sundays to partake in art activities that include natural materials, theatre, and play. Visitors are also invited to enjoy our Creative Hub for reading, drawing, and reflecting. For programming details go to the **[Event Calendar](https://www.thepowerplant.org/whats-on/calendar)** page on The Power Plant’s website.  

Lap-See Lam, still from Floating Sea Palace

**Lap-See Lam: _Floating Sea Palace_**  
  
**Curators**  
Julia Paoli, Director & Curator, The Vega Foundation  
Kate Whiteway, Assistant Curator, The Vega Foundation  
Adelina Vlas, Head of Curatorial Affairs, The Power Plant  
Frances Loeffler, Curator of Exhibitions, The Power Plant  
  
Lap-See Lam creates mythical video installations that draw on traditional storytelling forms such as Cantonese opera and shadow play puppetry. Her work takes a magic realist approach, creating alternative representations of Chinoiserie as defined by imperialist history, while simultaneously reflecting on her own family history of migration from Hong Kong to Sweden, to both claim and complicate cultural heritage. This exhibition, her first in Canada, presents her newest film, _Floating Sea Palace_ (2024), in which Lam draws on the folklore tale of Lo Ting, a mythical human-fish hybrid who is believed to be the ancestor of the Hong Kong people. The film is presented within an immersive environment built of bamboo scaffolding, which has been used for centuries as an integral material in the celebrated art form of Cantonese operas. _Floating Sea Palace_ reflects on transformation, translation, and the longing to return to an ever-shifting home that remains out of reach.  
  
  
_Floating Sea Palace_ is co-commissioned by The Vega Foundation, Studio Voltaire, and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. Produced in partnership with Moderna Museet. **Floating Sea Palace** is concurrently on view at Studio Voltaire in London from September 18 to December 15, 2024.  
  
The exhibition at The Power Plant is organized and developed in partnership with The Vega Foundation. The Vega Foundation provides critical support for artists’ film and video through meaningful investments in the production of ambitious new work, collaborations with Canadian and international institutions, and the stewardship of a growing collection. For more information, visit thevegafoundation.com. 

Charles Campbell, Breath Portrait series, 2024. C-print on aluminum composite panels, 20 in x 144 in. Courtesy the artist. 

**Charles Campbell: _How many colours has the sea_ **  
  
**Curators**  
Dominique Fontaine, Curator, Toronto Biennial of Art  
Miguel A. López, Curator, Toronto Biennial of Art  
Adelina Vlas, Head of Curatorial Affairs, The Power Plant  
Frances Loeffler, Curator of Exhibitions, The Power Plant  
  
Charles Campbell is a multidisciplinary artist whose diverse body of work challenges traditional notions of time and delves into possibilities arising in the aftermath of colonization. For _How many colours has the sea_ (2024), he creates a portal into a realm where the spirits lost in the Middle Passage—the harrowing journey of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic—find solace. The exhibition consists of newly commissioned works, including a large-scale sculpture that recreates the submerged terrain where African and North American tectonic plates converge, and nine monolithic panels, or “Breath Portraits” that visualize the breath of members of the Black community. It also includes an audio installation capturing the tranquil and tumultuous atmospheres of the sea using hydrophones (underwater microphones), and filling the gallery with the sounds of an ocean journey, both stormy and calm. An additional work available on headphones offers personal reflections on reconnecting with the lost. With these deeply resonant works, Campbell creates a sanctuary for private contemplation and collective healing that confronts the profound consequences of systems designed to divide and oppress.  
  
_How many colours has the sea_ is co-commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art and the National Gallery of Canada and co-presented with The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. The Toronto Biennial of Art is on from September 21 to December 1, 2024 at 11 venues across the city. For more information, visit **[torontobiennial.org](https://torontobiennial.org/)**.  
  
  
**Save the Date **  
Press Preview: Friday, September 20, 2 PM–4 PM  
**[Public Opening: Saturday, September 21, 3 PM–6 PM](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/opening-party-of-new-exhibitions-tickets-982123155797?aff=oddtdtcreator)**  
  
**About The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery ** 
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery is Canada’s leading public gallery devoted to contemporary art, ideas, and conversations. Located at Harbourfront Centre on Toronto’s waterfront, The Power Plant is a vital forum for the creative culture of our time, sharing inspiring and transformative experiences with audiences through free admission to exhibitions and public programs. The Power Plant is guided by the commitment to provide a platform for artists from diverse backgrounds, drawing attention to pressing issues and connecting communities in Canada and worldwide through contemporary art. 

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The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery Announces New Exhibition Season Featuring Two Immersive Installations

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Discover The Power Plant Archives

Emmanuel Osahor: To dream of other places

To dream of other places

Shelagh Keeley: Film Notebooks 1985-2017

Film Notebooks 1985-2017

On View

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Welcome to The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery

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**Performing Film**

We invite you to share an intimate encounter as dancer and choreographer Lin Snelling performs an improvised response to Shelagh Keeley’s _Film Notebooks 1985–2017_ at The Power Plant. This continues their collaboration of 45 years into the body as a locus for imagination and thought. Having presented past projects in Toronto, Montréal, Antwerp, Cyprus, Vancouver, and Edmonton, their latest collaboration was commissioned by MoMA Library and Archive. It formed another chapter of their decades-long research project, _Performing Book_.    

Space is a script that all bodies move through and with. Snelling looks forward to performing with the saturated, intuitive and quiet spaces Keeley offers in her film notebooks.

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**Lin Snelling** is a dancer whose artistic practice brings the qualities of improvisation into dance, theatre, writing, visual art, and somatic practice. She toured the world with Quebecois dance/theatre troupe Carbone 14 and worked with many improvisation ensembles. She teaches dance, experiential anatomy, and composition at the University of Alberta where she is also Coordinator of the MFA in Theatre Practice. Snelling’s work involves listening to the body and letting this hearing build a space that invites freedom into an endless adaptation of what dancing is and can become.  

Her international 45 year performing career involves collaborations, improvisations, and scored dance performances. She teaches and creates situational dramaturgies and real time composition pedagogies for actors, dancers and workshops for communities. Snelling responded to Keeley’s site-specific wall drawing _Notes on Obsolescence_ here at The Power Plant in 2014. Snelling’s recent performances are a new solo creation _Before/AFter_ (2024) created as a HoT Artist through the Naked Theatre (Brussels), _Joshua Tree_ as part of the BWDC Summer Season that toured to Bengaluru, India (2023) _ENTRANCES_ (2022) with writer David Gagnon Walker and multimedia designer Tori Morrison from Strange Victory Performance, and _Far Off and Personal_ (2020) a dance film with musician/composer Michael Reinhart. 

_All of our public programs are free, thanks to generous support from BMO—and from visitors like you. We invite you to Pay What You Can to help keep events like this accessible to all. _

_Because of your generosity, everyone can experience art._

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Durational Dance Performance: Lin Snelling 

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Come explore the world gardens in Shelagh Keeley’s artwork! In this fun session, we’ll discover why gardens are important around the world. We’ll learn about native plants, and how gardening can help to take care of the earth. Then, you'll get to plant your own little garden in a pot to take home!

Registration for this workshop will open four weeks ahead of the event.

Power Kids

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Power Kids: Seed and Sow

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Join us for an evocative evening of poetry amidst _To Dream of Other Places_, an exhibition by Emmanuel Osahor where beauty and sorrow intertwine. In this unique event, Toronto-based poets* will present their reflections on nature, the human experience, and the emotional landscapes that shape our lives.  

The event promises to be a contemplative evening, inviting attendees to reflect on the deeper connections between poetry, art, and the world around us. 

Come immerse yourself in the voices of Toronto’s vibrant poetry community, where art and poetry converge in a shared exploration of beauty, sorrow, and the human journey. 

*Poets will be announced soon. 

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Poetry Reading: Night Garden

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Inspired by Emmanuel Osahor’s _To Dream of other places_ participants will create unique layered night and day gardens, taking home one-of-a-kind artwork to cherish. 

No registration is required - simply drop in! 

The Power Plant