Dana Claxton is a critically acclaimed artist who works in film, video, photography, single and multi-channel video installation and performance art. Born in 1959 in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, of Hunkpapa Lakota heritage, she grew up in Moose Jaw. Her practice investigates beauty, the body, the socio-political and the spiritual, combining her multi-layered world view with Indigenous issues both past and present.
Her work has been shown internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney, Australia) and is held in public, private and corporate collections across Canada, including the Vancouver Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada. She has received numerous awards, including Best Experimental Film at the imagineNATIVE Film Festival and the Hnatyshyn Award for outstanding achievement. Dana is head and associate professor in the Department of Visual Art, Art History and Theory at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches theory about love, performance art and studio practice. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, on unceded Salish Territory.