Post-Doctoral Fellow in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices: Dr. Tanya Lukin Linklater
From December 2023 to December 2024, Tanya Lukin Linklater was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices in the Visual Arts Department at University of Victoria.
During her time as a Post-Doctoral Fellow, Dr. Lukin Linklater:
Launched the catalogue, Tanya Lukin Linklater: My mind is with the weather, co-organized by Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver and Contemporary Art Gallery on April 6, 2024.
Created a multi-part learning tool for the Toronto Biennial of Art composed of an infographic poster, a booklet of prompts, and a note on process, released in September 2024.
Completed a commissioned audio work titled Scores for deep, tender rest in the exhibition, Labour, curated by Ingrid Johnson at Art Museum, University of Toronto. The exhibition opened in September 2024 and continues to March 2025. I participated in a public conversation (panel) in October 2024 at University of Toronto for the exhibition.
Exhibited artwork in the exhibition, Ilagit/Relatives, co-curated by Heather Igloliorte and Taqralik Partridge at the FOFA gallery in Montréal
Curated, Suarluni/Emergence: Circumpolar Performance, an event at Centre Phi November 8, 2024 for Qinnirajaattuq / Ripples: Making Waves in Inuit Art symposium which featured performace art by Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Sylvia Cloutier, Jessie Kleeman, Taqralik Partridge, and Allison Akootchook Warden
Organized and moderated a panel discussion, Suarluni / Emergence: Circumpolar Performance, with Sylvia Cloutier, Jessie Kleeman, Taqralik Partridge, and Allison Akootchook Warden for the symposium on November 7, 2024.
Published an interview in BOMB Magazine “Kendra Sullivan and Tanya Lukin Linklater: On creative practice, poetry, and motivating institutional change” November 15, 2024
Spoke on a panel, “Material Matters,” with Sandra Brewster, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, and Wanda Nanibush at aabaakwad (it clears after the storm) gathering in Toronto organized by Wanda Nanibush December 4-December 9, 2024.
Tanya Lukin Linklater’s Sugpiaq homelands are the Native Villages of Afognak and Port Lions in the Kodiak archipelago, Alaska. Her artistic practice spans video, sculpture, and dance in museums. Sensation, embodied inquiry, scores, rehearsal, and being in relation (to ancestral belongings, communities, and weather) structure her work. Through citation of Indigenous peoples' lived experience and cultural work, she honours practices and lineages that exceed dominant ideas of who we are.
Her recent exhibitions include Aichi Triennale, Japan; Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; New Museum Triennial, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Toronto Biennial of Art. Her solo exhibition, Inner blades of grass (soft) (cured) (bruised by weather), including works from the last ten years and new commissions, was presented by the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio (2024). Her recent publications include poetry and art writing on Maureen Gruben, Tsema Igharas, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, and Taqralik Partridge.
Completing her Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University in 2023, her doctoral writing emphasized weather, embodiment, and materiality while theorizing Indigenous performance. She is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices in the Visual Arts Department at University of Victoria. This fellowship is supported by Heather Igloliorte’s Canada Excellence Research Chair.