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Friday 2 Oct 2020 at 5 pm

Virtual Event

Emerge 2020: Studio Visit with Tania Willard

  • Tania Willard

    Artist

    Tania Willard (Secwépemc Nation, b. 1977) is an artist and curator of mixed Secwépemc and settler ancestry and beginning January 2026, the Belkin’s Director/Curator. Willard’s research and creative processes are informed by land-based and community-engaged art practices, connections to culture and family, and intersections between Aboriginal and other cultures. Often focusing on Secwépemc aesthetics, language and land, Willard explores the shifts and tensions between ideas of the contemporary and the traditional. Willard centres art as an Indigenous resurgent act through her collaborative projects and her support of language revitalization efforts in Secwépemc communities. Willard’s personal curatorial projects include BUSH gallery, a conceptual space for land-based art and action led by Indigenous artists. Willard received an MFA from UBC Okanagan in 2018. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Kamloops Art Gallery; Burnaby Art Gallery; and SFU Audain Gallery, Vancouver. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at FotoFocus Biennial; Cincinnati Arts Centre; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin Germany; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery; and Open Studio Contemporary Printmaking Centre, Toronto. Willard has curated numerous exhibitions, including the traveling exhibition Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture that began at the Vancouver Art Gallery (co-curated with Kathleen Ritter); Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe; Unceded Territories: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun at the Museum of Anthropology (co-curated with Karen Duffek); and CUSTOM MADE at Kamloops Art Gallery. She was a curator in residence with grunt gallery and Kamloops Art Gallery. Willard was selected as one of five curators for a national scope exhibition in collaboration with Partners in Art and National Parks. She received the 2016 Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art, the 2020 Shadbolt Foundation VIVA Award, and was named a 2022 Forge Project Fellow. Her work with BUSH gallery was recognized through the Ruth Foundation for the Arts Future Studies award (2022). Willard is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies and Gallery Director at UBC Okanagan in Syilx territories (Kelowna, BC).

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On October 2, Emerge invites you to a virtual studio visit with Tania Willard (Secwépemc Nation). During this studio visit, Willard will give an introduction to her art and practice, particularly focusing on her work in the exhibition Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts. The studio visit will be followed by a short Q&A.


Studio visit with Tania Willard
1 hour, 4 minutes, 6 seconds

About Emerge

Emerge is a series of talks, workshops and behind-the-scenes tours dedicated to introducing visual art and art history students to the Vancouver art scene, with an emphasis on professional development. Each year, Emerge focuses around a key theme or set of ideas to guide discussions and events. The guiding themes of the 2020-21 academic year are Art, Community, and Social Change. Emerge is organized by the Belkin Art Gallery, the Art History Students’ Association, the Visual Art Students’ Association and the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at UBC. For more information about Emerge, contact Naomi Sawada, Manager of the Belkin’s Public Programs, at naomi.sawada@ubc.ca.

 

Image (above): Tania Willard, Surrounded/Surrounding (detail), 2018, installed at the Belkin as part of  Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts. Photo: Rachel Topham Photography

  • Tania Willard

    Artist

    Tania Willard (Secwépemc Nation, b. 1977) is an artist and curator of mixed Secwépemc and settler ancestry and beginning January 2026, the Belkin’s Director/Curator. Willard’s research and creative processes are informed by land-based and community-engaged art practices, connections to culture and family, and intersections between Aboriginal and other cultures. Often focusing on Secwépemc aesthetics, language and land, Willard explores the shifts and tensions between ideas of the contemporary and the traditional. Willard centres art as an Indigenous resurgent act through her collaborative projects and her support of language revitalization efforts in Secwépemc communities. Willard’s personal curatorial projects include BUSH gallery, a conceptual space for land-based art and action led by Indigenous artists. Willard received an MFA from UBC Okanagan in 2018. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Kamloops Art Gallery; Burnaby Art Gallery; and SFU Audain Gallery, Vancouver. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at FotoFocus Biennial; Cincinnati Arts Centre; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin Germany; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery; and Open Studio Contemporary Printmaking Centre, Toronto. Willard has curated numerous exhibitions, including the traveling exhibition Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture that began at the Vancouver Art Gallery (co-curated with Kathleen Ritter); Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe; Unceded Territories: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun at the Museum of Anthropology (co-curated with Karen Duffek); and CUSTOM MADE at Kamloops Art Gallery. She was a curator in residence with grunt gallery and Kamloops Art Gallery. Willard was selected as one of five curators for a national scope exhibition in collaboration with Partners in Art and National Parks. She received the 2016 Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art, the 2020 Shadbolt Foundation VIVA Award, and was named a 2022 Forge Project Fellow. Her work with BUSH gallery was recognized through the Ruth Foundation for the Arts Future Studies award (2022). Willard is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies and Gallery Director at UBC Okanagan in Syilx territories (Kelowna, BC).

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