Tanya Lukin Linklater


Tanya Lukin Linklater is of Caucasian and Alutiiq descent. She is an artist-choreographer. Her work consists of performance collaborations, videos, photographs and installations. She is currently the Director of the Office of Indigenous Initiatives at Nipissing University.

Biography

Linklater is Alutiiq and was raised in Afognak and Port Lions on Kodiak Island in Alaska. She now lives and works in North Bay, Ontario. Her practice includes performance, video, and installation, and it emphasizes collaboration with other Indigenous artists. Linklater's work is informed by the relationships between bodies, histories, poetry, pedagogy, Indigenous conceptual spaces, including Indigenous languages, and institutions.
Linklater was selected as the first Annual Indigenous Artist-In-Residence at All My Relations Arts in Minneapolis, MN. She served in the role from February 26 to March 5, 2017. That same year she was named artist-in-residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario. During her August residency, she collaborated with dancers on the performance Sun Force as a response to the AGO's exhibition Rita Letendre: Fire and Light.
In 2017 she co-founded the Wood Land School at the SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art along with her husband, the artist Duane Linklater, curator cheyanne turions and artist-author. Wood Land School: Kahatenhstánion tsi na’tetiatere ne Iotohrkó:wa tánon Iotohrha / Drawing Lines from January to December was explained by the collection as a "single year-long exhibition that will unfold through a series of gestures—clusters of activity that bring works into and out of the gallery space—such that the exhibition is in a constant state of becoming."
Linklater is pursuing a Ph.D in cultural studies at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. She holds a M.Ed from the University of Alberta and an A.B. from Stanford University.

Awards

In 2013 Linklater received the K.M. Hunter Artist Award in Literature. She has also been awarded multiple grants from the Ontario Arts Council. In 2018 Linklater was awarded the Inaugural Wanda Loop Research Fund, presented by Canadian Art magazine.

Select exhibitions

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