Tanya Lukin Linklater’s practice engages the histories that shape Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences, lands, and ways of knowing. Drawing on lineages of Indigenous dance and visual art, her work attends to structures of sustenance and to the forces of weather, understood as vital, interwoven systems.

For her exhibition at Portikus, Lukin Linklater presents a new, site-specific body of work, including bentwood sculptures, beadworks, and textile forms suspended from the ceiling, alongside watercolours.

The exhibition title Crested carries multiple meanings. It refers to the crest of a wave — the point of highest elevation, like a river swelling during a storm. The term also suggests adornment: tufted, plumed, embellished. A crest may also serve as a visual marker of belonging to a group. 

As part of the exhibition, Lukin Linklater will undertake a series of open rehearsals with the performers Mya Dixon, Talia Dixon, and Mekko Harjo. These embodied inquiries will be presented as works in progress during the exhibition’s opening weekend.

Tanya Lukin Linklater (Alutiiq/Sugpiaq, b. 1976, Kodiak Island, USA) lives and works in North Bay, Ontario. Her practice encompasses dance, performance, video, photography, installation, and writing. 

Her recent exhibitions and performances include the 14th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; Aichi Triennale, Japan; Anchorage Museum, Alaska; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Camden Art Centre, London; Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver; Chicago Architecture Biennial; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Dia Chelsea, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; New Museum Triennial, New York; Oakville Galleries, Ontario; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern, London; Toronto Biennial of Art; and Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia. Lukin Linklater received the Wexner Center for the Arts Artist Residency Award in Visual Arts (2023-2024) and The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for Visual Arts (2021).   

 

Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media). The exhibition is also supported by Städelschule Portikus e.V..
A research trip to North Bay, Ontario, was funded by Goethe Institut.