Whether she is writing, creating videos, installations, or performances, artist Tanya Lukin Linklater works from a perspective grounded in knowledge of, and responsibility to, Indigenous structures as a living practice. How does one listen? Decipher? Honor? Repair? Knowing the intangible and invisible are real, she explores, activates and reveals the aliveness of objects through embodiment. In this context, she understands her practice as reparative and as a space of participation, cultural memory and intergenerational strength. She inhabits the world of relationships -- among bodies, language, ancestors, community and place, as well as institutions. She remembers the life of Indigenous cultural belongings that have been removed from the land and peoples of their origin that are held in museum collections. Understanding these cultural belongings or ancestral objects in museums as information left by ancestors, she activates them through decipherment and embodiment. Her work both reveals the continuous manifestation of violent histories in the present moment and the sustained resistance of Indigenous peoples in North America. 

photo: Liz Lott