Tanya Harnett is a member of the Carry-The-Kettle First Nations in Saskatchewan. She is an artist and an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta in a joint appointment in the Department of Art and Design and in the Faculty of Native Studies. She has previously taught at MacEwan University and the University of Lethbridge.
Working in various media including, photography, drawing, printmaking and fiber, Harnett’s studio practice engages in the notions about politics, identity, history, spirituality and place. She has exhibited regionally, nationally and internationally.
Some of her exhibitions include:
- persona grata at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (2007)
- Tracing Histories: Presenting the Unpresentable at the Glenbow Museum (2008)
- Satoya Mani Win, RMIT Project Space, Melbourne (2011)
- The New World and The End of Language, MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts, Hungary (2013), Scarred/Sacred Waters (2014) the University of Aberdeen, Scotland and Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum, UK.
She is included in collections such as:
- The Alberta Foundation for the Arts
- The Glenbow Museum
- Moscow’s Puskin Museum of Fine Arts
- The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
- The Aboriginal Art Centre at the Department of Aboriginal and Northern Development Canada in Ottawa.
Harnett is an avid community supporter for Contemporary Aboriginal Artists. She participated in the creation of the University of Lethbridge BFA Native American Art (Studio) and the BFA Native American Art (Art History/Museum Studies), and she contributes writings on Aboriginal Contemporary Art to Canadian Art Magazine.
She is the recipient of various grants that include the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards, Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Canada Council for the Arts. She was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2015 and was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal by Lt. Governor General of Alberta.