Heather Igloliorte

Biography

Heather Igloliorte, an Inuk-Newfoundlander, has devoted much of her scholarly and curatorial career to fostering and amplifying the voices of Inuit and other Indigenous artists, writers, curators and cultural workers.

She is the University Research Chair in Circumpolar Indigenous Arts and Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at Concordia University. She also directs the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership Partnership Grant and co-directs the Indigenous Futures Research Centre.

Igloliorte has also served as the co-chair of the Indigenous Advisory Circle for the Winnipeg Art Gallery (2017-2021); President of the Board of Directors of the Inuit Art Foundation (2019-); and as a Faculty Council member of the Otsego Institute for Native American Art History at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York, among others.

She publishes frequently on Indigenous art and curatorial practice. She has co-edited The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Art Histories in the United States and Canada (Routledge, 2022); RACAR: Continuities Between Eras: Indigenous Arts (UAAC-AAUC, 2017); and Indigenous Art: New Media and the Digital (Special Issue, PUBLIC 54, Winter 2016). Her article Curating Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit: Inuit Knowledge in the Qallunaat Art Museum was awarded the 2017 Distinguished Article of the Year by Art Journal.

Igloliorte has been a curator since 2005 and has worked on more than 30 curatorial projects, including touring exhibitions, permanent collection exhibits, festivals and public art installations. She is also the lead guest curator of the exhibition INUA: Inuit Nunangat Ungammuaktut Atautikkut (Inuit Moving Forward Together) (Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2021–2023).

She was awarded a Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Medal (2021) for her services to the arts. Her exhibition SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft from Nunatsiavut (2016–2020) received an Award of Outstanding Achievement in Education from the Canadian Museums Association. Her curatorial work was recently recognised by The Hnatyshyn Foundation with a mid-career award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art (2021).

Igloliorte earned her PhD at Carleton University in Ottawa (2013).

Born in 1979, in Corner Brook, Canada, she currently lives and works in Montreal.

SAF participation:
March Meeting 2023