Tania Willard facts for kids

Tania Willard (born in 1977) is a talented Indigenous Canadian artist. She is also a graphic designer and a curator, which means she helps organize art shows. Tania is known for blending old Indigenous art styles with new, modern ideas. She is a member of the Secwepemc nation, which is located in the interior of British Columbia, Canada.

Tania helped organize a big art show called Beat Nation: Art Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture. This exhibition traveled to many important art galleries all over Canada.

Tania Willard's Early Life

Tania Willard was born in 1977. She grew up in Armstrong, British Columbia. She also spent time on her father's Indian reserve. A special moment happened when she was 16. She was selling fruit at a powwow for her aunt. There, she saw a group of kids breakdancing. This experience was very important for her.

Tania's Art Career

Tania Willard is an artist, graphic designer, and curator. She loves to mix traditional Indigenous art with modern ideas. Her work often connects old knowledge and skills with new ways of thinking. She explores how Aboriginal cultures and other cultures meet.

Beverley Clayton, who worked at the Kamloops Art Gallery, wrote about Tania's art. She said Tania's art connects different generations and cultures. It is inspired by the landforms on traditional Secwépemc land.

Tania uses many different art materials. She works with oil and acrylic painting. She also creates printmaking, pen and ink drawings, and watercolors. She uses mixed media and collage too. Tania also makes public art for everyone to see. In 2013, she worked with artist Guillermo Aranda and the Secwépemc Native Youth Network. They created a community mural called Neskonlith Mural. Tania is also part of an artist collective called New BC Indian Art and Welfare Society.

From 2013 to 2015, Tania was the Aboriginal Curator in Residence at the Kamloops Art Gallery. She received an award for her excellent work as a curator. It was the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Awards for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art. In 2017, Tania had her own art show. It was at the Burnaby Art Gallery and was called dissimulation.

Curating Art Shows

Tania Willard has organized many interesting art exhibitions.

Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop, and Indigenous Culture

Tania helped create the Beat Nation exhibition. It started as an online project for grunt gallery. The project showed visual art, videos, music, and writing.

The Beat Nation the Exhibition traveled to many cities. It went from Vancouver to Toronto, Kamloops, Montreal, Halifax, and Saskatoon. Tania said it was important to take the exhibit to different places. The show aimed to present Indigenous artists today. These artists respond to social and political issues. They also use a mix of modern art forms and old ancestral ideas.

BUSH Gallery

BUSH gallery is a special art project. It is an experimental, land-based, and Indigenous-led artist residency. It takes place on Tania's land in Secwépemc Nation. This is in interior British Columbia.

Tania and artist Peter Morin wrote about BUSH gallery in C Magazine. They said BUSH gallery is about people coming together. They discuss art making, land, Indigenous art history, and how to challenge colonial ideas. This magazine issue also included the BUSH Manifesto.

#callresponse Project

#callresponse is a big project with many parts. Tarah Hogue, Maria Hupfield, and Tania Willard organized it together. It was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and other groups. The project includes a website, social media platforms, a traveling exhibition, and a catalogue. Its goal is to highlight the important presence of Indigenous women.

The project features five new art pieces. These were made by Indigenous women from across Canada. They include Tania Willard, Christi Belcourt, Maria Hupfield, Ursula Johnson, and Laakkuluk Williamson-Bathory. Each artist invited a guest to respond to their work. These guests included Isaac Murdoch, IV Castellanos and Esther Neff, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Marcia Crosby, and Tanya Tagaq.

Tania Willard's Exhibitions

Select Artist Exhibitions

• 2009 – Lore, a group show with Tania, Duane Linklater, and Jason Lujan. It was at Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop's University & Gallery 101, Quebec.
• 2009 – Claiming Space, Tania's solo show at Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops, British Columbia.
• 2013 – Witnesses: Art and Canada's Indian Residential Schools, at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia.
• 2016 – Unsettled Sites, at Simon Fraser University Gallery, Burnaby, British Columbia.
• 2017 – Tania Willard: Dissimulation, at Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby.
• 2018 – The Shape of the Middle, at Open Studio Contemporary Printmaking Centre, Toronto, Ontario.
• 2019 – Hexsa'am: To Be Here Always, at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia.
• 2025 – Town + Country: Narratives of Property and Capital, at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver.

Select Curated Exhibitions

• 2012 – Beat Nation: Art Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture, a traveling show. The first stop was at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Tania was a co-curator).
• 2014 – unlimited edition, at Kamloops Art Gallery.
• 2015 – CUSTOM MADE / Tsitslem te stem te ck'ultens-kuc, at Kamloops Art Gallery.
• 2016 – Unceded Territories: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC (Tania was a co-curator).
• 2016 – Nanitch: Early Photographs of British Columbia from the Langmann Collection (Tania was a co-curator), at Presentation House Gallery (now Polygon Gallery), North Vancouver, Canada.
• 2016 – Work to Rule: Krista Belle Stewart, at Kelowna Art Gallery.
• 2017 – Maureen Gruben: Stitching My Landscape, for Landmarks/Repères2017.